Chapter Text
“So… I met someone new on a case today. Long story short, he’s living with me now.”
Margaret Coulson, who preferred Maggie and hated Peggy (there’s no P in her name, Phil, it doesn’t even make sense) loved surprises. Be it planning or receiving, she enjoyed the thrill of it. And, as the oldest of four children, she’d had a lot of opportunities to get better at it.
Like all Coulson children, she was raised to be considerate and courteous on some level. In her case, that meant planning surprises that the guest of honor would actually enjoy.
For Phil, that meant quiet get-togethers with some wine and those mini ice cream cakes that the bakery in their hometown makes out of angel dust and dreams (probably). Considering that she hadn’t actually seen her brother’s face in years because of his habit of letting his work take over, she hadn’t bothered trying to invite him down to her place, four states inland. While they do talk often, at least a couple times a week, it wasn’t the same as lying on the couch and pointing out inaccuracies in their favorite action movies.
So she was breaking into his house instead.
Well, breaking in sounded harsh. She had a key as well as his frequently updated security codes. But she was sneaking into his house when she knew (because she’d called to make sure) that he was going to be at the office until past midnight in the hopes that when he got home on his birthday, he’d be able to celebrate it in style.
If she was lucky she could probably get Phil’s roommates to help her set things up.
----xxxx----
“I’m starting to think Clint likes her more than me. I mean, I’m glad he’s making friends but...”
“You’re just used to being his favorite. Phil, trust me, Clint adores you. That’s not going to change. He still makes time for you, right?”
He chuckled softly, “Right. Right, of course you’re right.”
She grinned, not bothering to hide her smirk since it wasn’t as if he could actually see her. “I always am.”
Maggie put her car in park in the overflow visitor parking lot around the corner. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise if he saw her car in the driveway. She gathered her supplies, six hefty Walmart bags, and made her way down to Phil’s condo.
She reached his door at 11:28pm. Maggie set the bags down and flicked through her keyring for the one painted red, white, and blue and used it to unlock the door as quietly as she could. She vaguely regretted not getting Phil to leave her with the numbers of all the house’s occupants. Pepper was out of town and Maggie honestly cringed at the idea of calling her to get their numbers. She’d just have to maybe wake them up. Well, from what she’d heard about them, Bruce and Tony would probably still be awake. Shouldn’t be too hard to rope them into putting some tasteful decorations up.
----xxxx----
“So how was Peter? He and Liz are married now right? What’s that like?”
“I- Jesus, you make it sound dirty. I’m not going into locker room talk with- ...The hell?”
Maggie stood up a little straighter as she checked and rechecked the seat belt on her daughter’s car seat. “Phil? Is everything okay?”
There was a soft sigh through the line. “Tony took apart the coffee maker,” he said. It was said with the level of gravity of someone reporting the death of a beloved friend.
Though, to be fair, that was what he was doing.
“He made up some coffee before he took it apart,” came a voice in the background. It took Maggie a moment to recognize it as Pepper’s voice, tinny as it was. There was a soft sigh, a pause, and then a quiet slurp. Then a deeper, much happier sigh. “Right? I don’t know what he messed with this time, but it’s surprisingly good,” she said, sounding clearer now that she’d moved closer to Phil and almost like she was laughing.
“Remind me to remind him to only do this sort of thing during the day. When I’m not here to see my coffee maker being gutted.”
Maggie bit her lip and put the phone on speaker so that she could leave it on the dashboard as she started her car.
His pain was admittedly (almost) unreasonably funny. She was a big sister, it was okay for her to say that, right?
Maggie shut the door behind her, after nudging the bags in with her foot and disabling the security system. She re-enabled it and turned the knob on the wall to get the dimmer lights on. She’d been about to pick her bags back up when she heard the telltale click of the safety being taken off a gun. Breathing slow, she straightened up carefully, only to find a young girl staring at her.
Dark red hair curled around her young-looking face, doing nothing to detract from the dark glare or the gun aimed at the center of her forehead. Her head was cocked slightly and her eyes were narrowed.
“State your purpose.”
Maggie offered the girl her calmest smile, breathing slow through her nose to keep from hyperventilating. She was a teacher. If she could handle teenagers getting drunk illegally at Disney World, she could handle this.
“Do you know where you are?” Maggie asked carefully. She kept her voice even and clear, no condescension, no talking down.
The girl blinked and her lips turned down minutely though she didn’t respond.
“This is the home of an agent with the FBI. I don’t know how you got in here, but he’ll be home soon and you don’t want to be here for that. Would you like me to take you home? We don’t even have to call your parents.”
The girl’s eyes narrowed slowly.
“Uh, we are home. Who the heck are you and what do you want with Coulson?” came a voice to her left.
Maggie let her eyes shift without turning her head. There was a little boy there with two older boys. They were all watching her warily.
The fact that they knew Phil’s name was only a little concerning. If they lived in the neighborhood, they definitely would have heard it around. She gave them a smile that was almost sharp, deeply enjoying the way all three boys tensed slightly.
She was definitely going to be calling some parents.
“I’m his sister,” she replied pointedly.
There was a long beat of silence at that. The children, including the redhead, taking her eyes off Maggie for the first time, glanced at the blond boy who shrugged and shook his head.
The smallest boy snorted. “Well, we’ll just see about that!” He pulled out a small phone (a Stark Platinum 6, his parents must be loaded) and hit one of the buttons. It must have put the phone on speaker because she could hear it ringing loud and clear.
“Hello? Is everything alright?” And that was Pepper’s voice.
“Hey, Pep! Some lady’s here. She says she’s Phil’s sister.” It was clear from his tone that he didn’t believe that to be even remotely possible.
And sure, she looked more like her dad than her mom (who Phil took after), but they were still perfectly sibling-ish looking!
“Hey, Pepper!” Maggie called out, since she doubted that the boy would be willing to hand his phone over at the moment.
“Maggie? Hey! What are you- Oh, is this for Phil’s birthday?”
Maggie smiled at the looks of surprise and begrudging acceptance on the children’s faces. “Yeah. So what’s going on? Are you guys babysitting? Because that normally requires you to be with the kids.”
There was an alarmingly long silence at that. Even the children were staring at her, clearly bewildered.
“Maggie, they’re… Phil… he told you that he adopted some kids, right?”
Maggie startled sharply. Because no, he sure as hell had not. She reached down and took the phone from the little boy. “What. You don’t just…” She lowered her voice a touch so that she wasn’t shouting. “Do his roommates even know yet?”
“I- What? His roommates?” Pepper asked.
Maggie resisted the urge to grind the heels of her hands against her eyes. She knew that Pepper was rarely around, but this was ridiculous. “His roommates, Pepper,” she said, lowering her voice even further. “How does this even work? I’m sure they’re lovely people but Phil can’t just come up one day, say ‘Hey, Clint. FYI, I’m fostering some kids now, hope that’s cool!’ and expect them to all be okay with it!”
“I’m Clint.”
Maggie blinked at the interruption. She glanced up from the phone at the sandy haired boy. “What?”
“I’m Clint.”
She stared at him for a very long time before slowing turning towards the red haired girl. “...Natasha?” she asked, voice wavering.
The girl nodded.
Maggie blinked hard and stared up at the ceiling, praying to whatever deity that was currently available for the strength to not murder her little brother.
“Hold on a second,” Pepper said.
There was ringing then and after a moment, Phil’s voice came on the line. “Hello?”
“Phil, Maggie’s at your place and-”
Phil snorted softly, “Of course she is. I think she’s the only one that would hop on a plane for-”
“Phil. Did you not tell your family that you have kids?”
“Of course I-”
“No. No, you did not,” Maggie shot back.
She could actually hear Phil’s answering frown. “I talk about them all the time.”
“You talk about them like they’re adults,” she corrected. “You met them through work. Those were your exact words, Phil.”
“So you thought that… what, Phil just up and decided to get four, well five, roommates?” Pepper asked carefully. “And that didn’t seem weird?”
“Weirder than Phil, the most awkward of awkward uncles, just up and deciding to adopt four kids?”
Even Phil’s children shook their heads in sheepish concession to that point.
“Okay… well, this isn’t really that bad though?” Phil offered.
Maggie lowered herself slowly to sit down on the floor. She used her free hand to brush her bangs up and out of her face. “Phil…” and this seemed like a bad time to break the news but she honestly felt he deserved it at this point, “You’ve been living with Clint and Natasha for a while now and, uh, with the way you talk about them… Mom and Dad were sort of hoping for a… a, uh, ‘happy announcement’ by the end of the year involving one or both of them.”
There was a sharp crash on Phil’s end, no doubt from a coffee mug he’d lost his grip on. Maggie couldn’t tell if Pepper was choking or laughing.
Clint tilted his head in Natasha’s direction. “A happy announcement?”
When Natasha shrugged (it wasn’t a term she’d heard either) Bruce offered, “They thought one...or both, of you were going to marry Phil.”
Both immediately perked up at that. “Nice!”
“No! Not- WHY?” Phil called out once he’d finally managed to find his voice.
“Because you gush about them the most and - and I cannot stress this enough - we thought they were adults.”
“But...both of them?”
“We’re not gonna judge you for finding love, Phillip, whatever floats your boat,” she cooed, with a perfect mimic of the dreamy sigh their mother had let out the last time had asked about his love life, nearly five years ago.
Phil actually seemed to be hyperventilating a little.
“So… who's going to be breaking the news to your parents that they have grandchildren that their son hasn’t thought to bring out to see them?” Pepper asked dryly, more than happy to get in on raking Phil over the coals for his poor decision-making.
Phil gasped sharply. “Maggie, lovely, lovely Margaret -” he started, his tone a clear precursor to asking for a favor.
Rather than try to talk her way out of that (because Phil could be alarmingly convincing when he wanted to be and she wanted NO part of that), she just cackled evilly and hung up, all the while maintaining a straight face.
Maggie handed the phone back to the boy (who she just now realizing was Tony freaking Stark, how had she not figured that one out sooner), who stared at her with both eyebrows raised high.
She stared back in silence for a moment before something started nagging at the back of her mind.
“Wait, he let you guys stop a bank robbery?”