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All of the Avengers would go to their grave swearing that it wasn't their fault. It wasn't like they'd gone looking for trouble, trouble had just shown up on their doorstep, quite literally, with a note saying, 'please look after me, thanks!' and a little squiggle that could have been a signature or an ink blot.
Because Steve was Captain America, looking out for all Americans and all citizens of Earth, and also one huge softie, when he opened the door of the tower to go for a run and found a toddler sitting there, looking confused but giggling, he couldn't just leave it there. Alerting FRIDAY (they're not using JARVIS anymore are they since he's Vision idk) to the development, he read the note that had been attached to the child and carefully watched him as it crawled around the living room and eventually settled for gnawing on the arm of a sofa.
At this moment, Tony walked in, looking half asleep. He took in the scene with bleary bewilderment, saying, "You didn't even tell me you were pregnant, Cap."
Steve blushed brightly, "It's not mine!" he explained desperately, even though that should have been quite obvious since the kid was at least three. As he and Tony watched the child destroy the furniture, too mystified as to why it was there to stop it from having the run of the room, Clint, Natasha and Bruce made an entrance. Natasha took one look at the child, swung on her heel and left the room. Clint followed her, although he grinned brightly at the sight of the child before he left, so Steve hoped that he was just going to talk to Natasha and was actually good with children.
"How," Bruce groaned, "did you get a child?"
"There was a sale on at Target, do you want one?"
"Tony," Steve chided, turning to Bruce, "it just turned up on our doorstep. I couldn't leave it there!" He flailed his arms wildly to show his helplessness, but Bruce was too preoccupied trying to stop the child licking his trouser leg, as it had come over to see the new person in the room. The child found it quite a game, and soon Bruce was perched on the top of the sofa as the toddler attempted to climb up Steve's leg to get to him.
"Tell me you're good with kids!" pleaded Steve.
"If they don't cry I can do a pretty decent job of not letting them die," Bruce admitted, "if they cry, though, I'm out."
"It didn't cry at being abandoned on a doorstep, what will it cry at?" mused Tony hopefully. At that moment, the child managed to catch hold of Bruce's trouser, and laughed so loudly Steve wondered whether it was a bomb disguised as a child, and it was on the verge of detonating. The noise alerted some other residents of the tower that something was wrong, because Wanda and Pietro wandered into the room next, taking in the scene with an expression that said they shouldn't be surprised but were anyway. Wanda left immediately, but Pietro stuck around for a while, more because he was half-deafened and curious than any instinct to help look after the alarm siren that was the child. He looked like he had just woken up, which showed how loud the laugh was, waking Pietro from sleep was like waking the dead.
"Why won't it shut up?" Pietro asked, and it was surprising that he could form a coherent sentence so early in the morning. Everyone shrugged, looking at the child fearfully, envisioning an entire day of the horrible noise. As Pietro turned to leave, Peter walked in, but before he could do anything other than do a double-take at the newest member of the Avengers, Pietro had gripped him by the arm and was dragging him back out. "You don't want to know," he warned, and Peter seemed to accept that as a reasonable answer.
Then the child, bored with its game, started to cry. Clint appeared almost immediately, probably summoned by the fact that someone other than him was making a loud, annoying noise. He settled down on the floor next to the boy and made a variety of funny faces, which you'd expect to traumatize the poor kid but instead sent it off into a fit of giggles that were thankfully quieter than its foghorn laugh.
"Does it have a name?" Clint asked, obviously deciding better than to ask.
"Nope, nope, nothing. We could call lost and found?" Tony suggested.
"The kid is not a bag, Tony," Bruce complained, whilst Steve nodded disapprovingly in the background, "we'd have to call the police."
"You know what, it's too early for this," Tony announced, "you've shot down all of my ideas, I'm obviously not wanted here, and I'm allergic to anything younger than 10. Goodnight." it would have been an impressive stomp out of the room if he hadn't tripped over a table and laid there for a while before getting up again.
"Is Natasha okay?" asked Steve, completely ignoring Tony, as he did a lot.
"Yeah, she just, can't really deal with children. It's a long story, but," Clint shrugged, risking a glance at Steve, and immediately the kid cried again.
"What is that infernal noise?" Boomed Thor, arriving majestically in the doorway. He saw the child and immediately broke into a grin, picking it up rather precariously and swinging it around. Although it did make the kid laugh again, it was only a matter of time before he dropped it. Thankfully, Clint saw the impending disaster and attempted to prevent it.
"Thor, thank God you're here, Tony has no children's toys and we can't get it to shut up. Can you go buy some for us? Take Tony's credit card, buy as many as you think we need, thanks!" he all but shoved Thor out of the door and into the street, swiftly exchanging the child for a credit card, and slammed the door shut, "He'll be gone for hours."
Vision, who had turned up at some point during the baby's brush with death, stared at it for a while. "What is it doing?" he asked as the boy played with his shoes. Surprising everyone, it was Bucky who picked up the child and swung it around, significantly less dramatically than Thor, but enough that it laughed and was distracted from Vision for long enough for him to slip out of the door to join Thor, who was like a child himself.
"Buy some baby food!" Steve yelled after him.
Together, the four of them attempted to take care of the child as best they could. Steve refused to hold it, aware of his strength and afraid that he could accidentally injure it, so he hovered in the background, making sure nobody was put in mortal danger and generally worrying about who had left a child on their doorstep for them to look after, and how long it would be there.
A few hours later, when everyone was getting bored and afraid that they would be stuck with a baby forever, Thor returned, carrying six bags filled with various toys and foodstuffs. "Tony will be pissed," grinned Clint, as they spread them out on the floor and took a welcome break from being the only source of entertainment. They sent Thor back out again on another mission which sounded even more fake than the first, but in his desperation to help and eagerness to please Thor bounded out without question.
"Is it dead?" Tony asked suddenly, having bolted from the safety of his workshop under the pretext of getting lunch, although it was also to check that no-one had died and that Steve wasn't going to try and adopt the child, which he would probably have nightmares about for weeks.
"No, no, shh!" Steve whispered desperately, "He's finally asleep!"
Tony took a moment to question the general misfortunes of his life, like that he was stuck with a load of badass superheroes and they had to babysit of all thing, before an idea struck him. "If this is Fury's idea I'll make him need an eyepatch over his other eye."
"If what was my idea?" Fury asked, and Tony jumped as he saw the man entering the building at precisely the wrong time. Fury, however, was too distracted by the conked out child on the floor to yell at him, "Where in God's name did you get a child?"
Steve sighed as it woke up and caught sight of the scary man in all black, and Clint scrambled to amuse it with toy cars and funny faces. By this point, the floor was littered with garish toys that could probably blind someone, a fact Fury took in quickly before shaking his head and walking out, abandoning the team once more to their desperate attempts to comfort a child that they didn't know and their dwindling hopes that someone would come to claim it.
When Sam, who had been on a mission, came in, they were attempting to feed the boy, with Tony muttering, "Go to sleep go to sleep please God go to sleep," as a repeating mantra in the background, although he wasn't actually doing anything so he could have left, and had no right to complain.
"What the - no, don't answer that, I don't want to know," Sam announced his presence, before shaking his head at their pleas with the child and ordering, "Oh for God's sake, give it here. I'll deal with it."
Gratefully, Bucky and Bruce handed the baby and food over to Sam, who expertly fed it and laid it down to sleep.
"Witchcraft!" accused Tony, but Sam just shrugged and held his hand above his head.
"If you want me to go then," he made an aborted movement towards the door.
"No!" cried Tony, Steve, Bruce, Bucky and Clint, which made Sam laugh.
Towards the end of the day, when they were wondering about where it would sleep, there was a knock at the door. Tony opened it, and Johnny Storm strode in, grinning when he caught sight of the toddler playing with toys. It ran over to him, giggling.
"Joe! Hey buddy, how was your day?"
"Is he yours?" Steve asked, frowning.
"No, I'm meant to be babysitting, but I had to go save the world, y'know how it is, so I thought you guys could do it," he looked round at the sea of confused faces, "wait, did you not know?" I signed my name," he pointed to the squiggle on the note.
"Oh, that's your name? I though someone had used the paper to swat a fly," Tony observed, and Johnny rolled his eyes.
"Well, anyway, got to go, thanks!"
"Wait, do you want the toys?"
"Nah, keep them, I might need your help again," Johnny winked. As soon as he had left, the six of them collapsed on the sofas, half asleep already.
"FRIDAY," tell the others it's safe to come down," Tony ordered, but even he didn't manage to stay awake to hear the AI's affirmative response.