Work Text:
Fury tried to take a step closer as he talked to the Hulk rather than at him… Mainly nonsense, the same type you would to any potentially deadly animal as you tried to escape. But Fury couldn’t just walk away when Hulk picked up and glared intently at the extremely young child now giggling at him and waving. “Hulk, put him down,” Hulk grunted at the child, who sneezed, jerking back and shaking his head. “Hulk, put him down, carefully. He’s breakable.”
Hulk snorted and glared at him like he was stupid, and wasn’t that just the icing on the cake? He ended up three steps closer when the beast reared up and roared full force at him, actually knocking him back a few steps with the sudden pressure of it hitting him in the chest. “NO TAKE TEAM!”
Fury scrambled forward as Hulk scooped up the other 4 infants and hopped a good quarter mile away from him and the rest of the SHIELD agents that had been trying to get to the children without drawing attention. He panicked when he heard a high pitched squeal before he realized it was the children giggling. At least they were still alive, and in a sense safe. Right?
Hulk grunted and covered the giggling mob of tiny humans as he tore up the ground on impact. One of the tinies hiccupped, having laughed himself into them, making Hulk grunt and look over them to see which one it was and if they were hurt. The smallest of the group hiccupped, straight faced at him before giggling and hiding his face. Hulk smiled, taking that to mean they were okay.
Hulk tried to speak and the tinies winced and covered their ears, making him fall silent and grunt at them. “It otay,” Hulk blinked at the tiny voice as a tiny hand patted his thumb. “Whispew?”
Hulk grunted at the dark haired boy, “Protect team.” He got smiles from all the tinies and smiled back as he set them down, knowing they’d be safe before sitting down with them.
“Pwomise,” Hulk nodded, grunting as the young boy helped the youngest of them up on the unsteady ground.
“Hulk protect Tony,” the dark haired boy blinked, seeming confused about how he knew his name but Hulk just smiled and reached to lift the youngest boy up. “And Clint.” The little one in his hand blinked wide eyes at him. “And Steve,” the smallest hiccupped again, this time it seemed to hitch in mid sound though. Hulk smiled when the hiccups didn’t occur again. “And Thor,” the young blond blinked at him then beamed and puffed out his chest a bit. Hulk chuckled and softly tapped his head, as he remembered a mother doing to Bruce so long ago. “And ‘Tasha.” The only girl blinked wide eyes at him before she smirked and finally full out smiled as one of the others nudged her softly.
Hulk blinked when the tiny young girl started climbing up his leg, “ Обними меня.” He blinked but she raised tiny arms at him, he frowned then reached out to pick her up, she snuggled against his arm before he realized what the stranger word meant.
“Hug,” Hulk rumbled, the others all gathering and raising arms to be picked up too. He ended up with an arm full of extremely young and tiny Avengers now yawning at him.
Soon Hulk yawned too, after smashing and protecting tinies and now that there didn’t seem any threat he realized it was time for him to sleep too… SHIELD learned from his first warning. The agents stayed far enough away Hulk could see them but knew they wouldn’t try to touch his tiny team again. He grumbled softly, tiny Natasha stirred enough to blink at him sleepily before he yawned loudly and she smiled and sprawled out with the other tinies now curled up on him as he laid back. Banner didn’t like waking up standing… He always fell and sometimes wake Hulk up again, so this time he laid down before he fell asleep.
A soft laugh is what woke Hulk back up, he blinked and lifted his head at the voice, grumbling softly when he realized he couldn’t look toward the sound because a small child seemed to have bedded down right under his chin while he was asleep. “It’s okay Hulk, it’s just me.”
Hulk snorted, making the small child wake up enough to move so he could look to see Pepper smiling at him. “Pepper lady.”
“Yeah, it’s me. Is everything okay?” Hulk shifted a shoulder softly, quickly grabbing the extremely small child before he could fall off his arm because of the movement. “Fury said you roared at him… and went to sleep with-”
“Team,” Hulk grumbled softly, the children all shifted, starting to wake up and rub eyes to see what had caused the noise.
“Yeah. The team.” Pepper blinked as a few of the, way too young to be near Hulk, children climb up to hide behind his broad shoulders as he sat up. “Hulk, where’s Bruce? You went to sleep but he didn’t wake up.”
Hulk shrugged, sending one exploring child flailing and tumbling back before he casually reached and hand behind him and caught the boy before he could fall more than a few feet. “Banner think tiny team safer with Hulk?”
“Hulk, think of it from our view. You’re at least twice MY size and can squish me like a bug… How afraid do you think he must be of you being able to hurt them? He should be here, making sure they’re safe, the same as when you first saw them this way. But he’s not.”
“Hulk no squish tiny team,” Hulk glared, making Pepper step back and hold up her hands as a submissive jester even while he picked up one random child that had been poking at his foot to smile at him. “Hulk no ticklish Tony.” Tony pouted and crossed his arms in a huff while Natasha smirked and got Hulk to jump with a well placed press of fingers against his side. He couldn’t stop from chuckling at her. “No can hurt Hulk.” She just frowned and glared at his side before smirking and pressing again, this time Hulk jerked and felt a tickling up his side, he couldn’t stop from laughing when she found similar spots nearby the first.
“So much for not being ticklish,” Pepper smiled while helping one of the children back to his feet when he jumped away from the now flailing giant. She had a miniature panic attack when they all climbed back up on the still flailing rage monster but calmed, reluctantly, when she realized Hulk stopped flailing ‘as much’ when he felt the children climbing back onto his chest to help the tiny assassin prove him wrong. Turning around Pepper gave a shrug in the direction of the rest of SHIELD watching them. She knew she had to be pissing Fury off but it looked like they would have to wait for it to wear off. Oh well. The kids were having fun, and it turned out Hulk didn’t seem a half bad babysitter.
