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Clint
Clint was crawling through the vents. Technically Tony had told him to stop doing it, but Clint knew if the inventor really didn’t want Clint up here, he would make him stop, so he thinks it’s safe to wander in the ceiling. Plus it keeps his vent training sharp, in case of a vent-related mission.
He’s above the Avenger's common floor when he smells burning toast. At first, he thinks either he’s having a stroke, or Tony is flooding the vents with the smell, then he hears a light curse from the direction of the common kitchen and shuffles toward the smells.
Looking through the vent slates, there is a woman he doesn’t recognize standing in front of the toaster. Immediately his guard is up before he recognizes the shirt she’s wearing. One of Tony’s AC/DC t-shirts, and a pair of his sweatpants. She pulls the two pieces of burnt bread from the toaster and drops them on the plate in front of her. From his angle, he can just make out the scowl marring her beautiful face. Her features are sharp and her skin is an almost unhealthy pale shade. Black hair falls loose around her shoulders. He can just barely make out her muttered curses at the toaster.
She’s definitely Tony’s type, and judging by the hickeys that cover her shoulders and collarbone from where the shirt hangs loose he can guess she came over for something Clint doesn’t want to think about. The thought does give him pause, as he believed Tony had put to rest his playboy ways a while ago. Pepper and Tony hadn’t worked out but the backsliding that caused had been months ago and he thought Tony had gotten back to normal.
Before he can dwell too much on it, Tony rounds the corner.
“Am I having a stroke?” He asks, his voice is a little rough, his hair still ruffled from sleep.
“No, I just don’t know how to work this infernal device.” She responds, her accent vaguely familiar but not something Clint can place.
He walks over and wraps his arms around her stomach, settling his chin on her shoulder. “You have it all the way up, for one thing.” He reaches over and turns the toaster down a few notches then grabs another two slices from the loaf of bread and pops them in.
Silence settles over the room for about thirty seconds before the toaster beeps and Tony pulls the two pieces of bread out and onto a new plate, toasted to perfection. And all the while he does not remove himself from her space, he keeps one arm wrapped around her, and his head right next to hers.
“Voila!”
She grabs one of the slices and takes a bite. She mumbles something that Clint can’t hear.
“Sorry, what was that?” Tony asks, a smug tone clear as day.
“Thank you,” she says a little louder and Tony kisses her lightly on the cheek.
“You’re very welcome.” He says, “Come on. You can eat in bed, but I want to go back to sleep, and you’re coming with me.”
She giggles a little as he drags her away, plate of toast in hand.
Clint stays still in the vent, shocked at the scene he has just witnessed. Usually when Tony had a ‘guest’ over, he got them out of the tower as quickly as possible the next morning. Mostly because if he doesn’t, the team will crow and holler at him during breakfast. They also never, ever, stay for breakfast. Especially breakfast in Tony’s bed!
Clint glares at the leftover burnt toast in thought, before finally getting his body to move again, and deciding that if she is staying for the morning, he does not want to be privy to whatever they’re doing. He nods and drops out of the vents, heading to the elevator and pressing down, deciding to choose the training room in the basement, the farthest room away from Tony’s penthouse apartment.
Natasha
Natasha walks into the living room on the common floor and her attention is immediately drawn to the low coffee table in front of the couch. A small, ornate dagger sits in the middle of the table and Natasha walks over to inspect it.
It’s definitely not one of hers and it isn’t Clint’s either. Both of them use simple daggers, always purely practical. The one in front of her, though still clearly durable, was more detailed and decorated than what she usually worked with.
The blade was simple, with slight swirling ridges but the handle was decorated with a snake curling over the handle. The shape was made for a hand bigger than hers, though not by much. The snake is painted in detailed greens and blues.
She stares down at it intently, wondering who could have left it there. The metalwork and the little flecks of gold in the paint remind Natasha of some of Thor's weapons, though the handle is far too small for him, and his go-to colour is always either red or blue. The shade and snake imagery have her mind wandering to Thor’s brother.
As the thought enters her head she senses another presence in the room and turns to look at a woman standing a few feet away from her. Her dark hair flows over her shoulders in neat curls, her pale face is all sharp edges. Shimmering eyeshadow surrounds her piercing green eyes, and if Natasha didn’t know better, she’d say there were spots of gold in the green. Her outfit is neatly put together, simple black slacks and a slightly see-through blouse, over which she has a dark green vest, tight in all the right places. She wears heels that make Natasha’s feet hurt just looking at them. She is adorned in delicate silver jewelry, including shimmery waterfall earrings, and a simple chain necklace.
The two stare at each other. She feels like she should be worried that not only is there a stranger in the tower, but she was able to get so far into the room without Natasha noticing her. But her presence is light, and her eyes hold nothing close to hostility.
She circles around the couch, and steps to the other side of the coffee table, picking the knife up. Natasha notes that her hand fits perfectly around the handle.
“I misplaced this.” She says lightly.
“Right,” Natasha says. “Who are you?”
“Oh, I’m Lucy.” When Natasha raises an eyebrow at the vague answer, she tacks on, “Anthony’s… girlfriend.”
Natasha notes the hesitation on the word ‘girlfriend’, but does remember Clint mentioning a woman matching Lucy’s description with Tony one morning. At the time Clint had said she was probably one of Tony’s one-night stands, but he also said she stayed for breakfast, something only Pepper had ever done.
Natasha nods, “I’m Natasha.” She reaches a hand out.
Lucy shakes her hand, and Natasha catches a glimpse of a signet ring with a symbol she knows but can’t place.
With nothing else to say, Lucy nods politely and walks towards the elevator. Once the ding tells her that the elevator is closed she sits on the couch and searches for the remote.
Steve
Steve is alone in the tower. Well, not alone.
Technically no one is ever alone in the tower, with JARVIS always overhead. When he was first introduced to the idea, he was freaked out quite a bit, but he has since gotten used to JARVIS, the A.I. proving to be quite good company. And a valuable ally in trying to get Tony to take care of himself.
So Steve was not alone, he had JARVIS. And Tony. In their last battle against Loki, the golems that he had created out of concrete from the road packed quite the punch. Steve left with some badly bruised ribs and Tony with a concussion. Clint and Natasha were both fast enough to avoid the things, and the Hulk seemed to have had the time of his life. Thor, as always, was up in the sky with Loki, trying to convince his brother of the goodness in him, and trying to convince him to surrender. As always, Loki laughed, and Thor looked heartbroken.
Doom attacked the UN and Steve and Tony were deemed unfit to assemble by Bruce, just before he went green. So really, it was Steve, JARVIS, and Tony, alone in the tower.
Tony had been sulking since the battle with the Asgardian, JARVIS having locked Tony out of the lab, and putting anywhere with any sort of technology that Tony could work on, on lockdown. That meant no Kitchen, no lab, no training room.
“Hey JARVIS, where’s Tony?” Steve asked the empty living room.
“Sir is in the library.” The A.I. responds immediately.
“Thank you JARVIS.”
Steve takes the stairs down to the library which takes up an entire floor in the building. Tony is very rarely in the library, almost always finding whatever information he needs online. Steve worries about Tony’s concussion, knowing you shouldn’t read with a concussion.
Steve opens the door to the library and is immediately greeted by music. The music is instrumental and old-fashioned. Hearing music like it sometimes helps soothe the ache in his heart.
Deeper into the library he hears humming, that sounds like Tony.
He follows the sound and both the humming and the music get louder until he comes across the source of the sound. He finds himself in a little nook where the shelves spread out and the space is filled with comfortable armchairs and couches. The furniture is pushed back, however, along with a few tables, giving space in the middle. He spots a record player spinning on one of the tables.
In the middle, swaying to the music, is Tony, with his arms wrapped around the waist of a woman with dark hair. They both stand in casual clothing, barefoot, and relaxed. Steve had heard about Lucy, Tony’s mysterious girlfriend. Clint mentioned her first, then Natasha. When Steve brought her up to Tony two weeks ago, Tony got this love-sick expression and told Steve about her for 30 minutes.
“I’m sorry you got hurt,” Lucy whispers. Only Steve’s enhanced hearing allowed him to catch it.
Tony stops humming and pulls her closer to him, something Steve didn’t realize was possible.
“I’m okay.” He says. “Bruce says in a few days I’ll be right as rain.”
Steve realizes he has never heard Tony sound so tender, or caring, about anything. Not even with Pepper. He then abruptly realizes he is intruding on something very private. He turns on his heel and leaves the library.
Bruce
Bruce is irritated.
First, he hit a roadblock in some of his research into the Tesseract. Thor brought it back to Asgard ages ago but had allowed Bruce to take some scans before he took it. But his work would be ten times easier and yield twice as many results if he had the cube in the lab.
Second, when he went to get some calming tea, he found the box empty. No one else in the tower even drank tea, so he guessed it must have been one of Clint’s pranks. Though why the archer would ever choose to prank the rage monster is not something Bruce will ever get.
Third, he had asked Tony to come down and help him the night before and Tony had promised he would drop by Bruces’ lab at around 9:30 in the morning. It’s currently 11. When Bruce asked JARVIS where Tony was, the A.I. replied that he was still asleep. And that he had apparently had Lucy over.
That was also something that was bothering Bruce. Everyone on the team, save for Thor because he was taking care of things on Asgard, had met and loved Lucy, on multiple occasions. Natasha and Lucy bonded over knives and the stupid men they chose to surround themselves with. Clint and Lucy have been having shooting contests that she has apparently been winning. Steve and Lucy learn about pop culture together, apparently where she comes from is quite old-fashioned, with similar sensibilities to Steve’s time.
Lucy was making friends with everyone but Bruce.
Bruce was under no misconception about what people thought about him. Scary and dangerous. He was sure the woman was avoiding him. Sometimes he would come into a room and Clint would tell him he had just missed the ravenette.
It doesn’t bother him as much as it did when the Hulk first became a problem, but he would have thought that Tony would have chosen someone a little more open-minded.
He stared at the coffee machine forlornly. Before the Hulk, he was as much a coffee addict as Tony but with the mood he’s in, and the feeling of big, green, and scary burning just below his consciousness, he felt it would be best to avoid the substance. Grabbing a glass of juice from the fridge, and a plate of crackers and cheese, he headed back to his lab.
He opened the door and was greeted by the scent of perfectly steeped tea.
Standing in front of one of the whiteboards he had been working away on is Lucy. She’s wearing black jeans and a heavy, dark green fleece sweater. Her hair is done in a simple bun to keep it out of her face. In her hands, she holds a mug, where the heavenly smell is coming from.
Her shoulders go tense for a split second before carefully relaxing.
“Can I help you?” He asks, setting his food and drink on a nearby table.
She hums a little before saying, “You are misinterpreting the Tesseract. It is not a device, it is a container.”
His eyes widened slightly at her words. Walking over next to her he sees she has taken one of the green markers and added notes on the board around his work, correcting some things as well.
“What’s it containing?” He asks her.
He sees something that makes her grow more comfortable with him. He assumes the academic conversation is giving her some separation between himself and the Hulk.
“Energy.” She says like it’s the most obvious thing in the universe.
“Of course, I’m asking what energy? And what kind of device or power could produce that kind of energy?” He clarifies.
She turns slightly to him and something lights in her eyes. “Have you ever heard of the infinity stones?”
He shakes his head and she flips the whiteboard over to the clean side and grabs a marker from a nearby table. “Sit down,” she says, “this is gonna take a while.”
-
Bruce had finished his plate, and his juice and Lucy had long since finished her tea by the time Tony came downstairs to check in on him.
“Hey Bruce, sorry, I slept late but - ”
He stops short at the sight of Bruce furiously writing down notes as Lucy points at various sections of the board. She had decided to color code each of the stones and split up the board into six sections. She violently points to the section in green as she complains about second-rate mortal sorcerers. Bruce in truth doesn’t understand half of what she’s saying, but writes it down anyway, for review later.
“What’s going on?” Tony asks, and they finally turn to him.
“Science.” Bruce says as soon as Lucy says, “Magic.”
“JARVIS what’s happening?”
“Doctor Banner had hit a bit of a roadblock in his research with the Tesseract and Miss Lucy is helping to explain the broader implications of the cube, along with its relation to the other infinity stones, Sir,” JARVIS responds immediately.
“So you two are friends now?” Tony asks though Bruce catches the fact that the question is more directed to Lucy than to him.
Lucy shrugs. “He is good company. With excellent taste in tea.”
Tony raises an eyebrow at Bruce and says, “She's brilliant, you didn’t tell me you were dating a magic physicist.”
“I didn’t tell you 'cause I knew you were gonna try and steal her.” Tony pouts.
“You should have been more worried about me trying to steal him.” Lucy chuckles.
Tony gasps at her words and clutches his chest dramatically. “It’s like being stabbed in the heart, this betrayal!”
Bruce laughs. “Tony I can have more than one science bro.”
“No, you have to choose, me or her?” Tony’s face is deadly serious, and Bruce might have almost been scared if not for Lucy’s poorly hidden laughs.
“Her.”
“Traitor!”
Thor
Almost the entire team is lounging in the living room. Clint had taken possession of the remote and insisted on showing Steve Friends. The debate about who would be which of the characters was loud enough to almost drown out the show.
“Obviously Nat is Rachel.”
“No way, I’m Monica.”
Steve was watching the debate with interest.
“But Tony is definitely Phoebe, right?” Bruce interjected.
Clint nodded violently.
The only people not in the room were Thor, who was still away on Asgardian business, and Tony and Lucy, who were just out on the balcony, enjoying the sun, and talking about, assumedly, couple things.
Despite the fact that they were adorable, Natasha could do with less PDA.
Suddenly, Steve felt the pressure in his ears pick up and he looked out the massive windows, past Tony and Lucy, to the growing clouds in the sky. “Thor’s back.”
The others look out at his words and Clint smiles. “Finally! We need the muscle back!”
The telltale shake of the building tells them Thor has landed. They were glad Tony was out there to greet him, thus hopefully getting all of Thor’s excited energy out. He was always so excited to see them that he sometimes forgot the full force of his hugs could damage their spines.
The thankfulness was quickly destroyed as they heard shouting before Thor threw Tony through the window. Tony flew into one of the couches on the far side of the room, lucky that he hadn’t landed somewhere worse.
The team was immediately on guard. Though both Pepper and Bruce frown upon it, Clint and Natasha keep their weapons in every room of the tower. Clint grabbed the crossbow he had taped under the coffee table when he first moved in, and Natasha slid two knives out from under the couch cushions. Steve dumped the snacks they had out on the table and held the tray like his shield. Bruce stayed back but prepared to go green.
Thor stepped through the broken window, with rage in his eyes the likes of which they had never seen. At first, Bruce thought maybe he had run into Amora at some point, and she had enchanted him. But his eyes were clear, and when he looked at the rest of the team he smiled slightly, before turning back to glare at Tony.
By the time Thor had gotten halfway to Tony, the inventor had pulled himself up, and JARVIS deployed one of his suits. Iron Man charged up one of his repulsors but didn’t fire. “Calm down, Point Break!”
The lighting surrounding him jumped and sparked as Thor stopped, about ten feet of space between him and Tony.
“I WILL NOT BE CALM!” Thor bellowed, and Clint was sure he could feel the building shake. “You have defiled my sister and for that, you must pay with your life, for you are unworthy of her!”
Tony put his hands up in a move of surrender, “Listen, you are blowing this way out of proportion - ”
Before Tony could finish his thought, Thor lunged forward. He took a mighty swing with his hammer that Tony just barely avoided. Clint fired an arrow that bounced off of Thor’s hammer when he brought it up to block.
“Stay out of this!” Thor shouted before Tony sent a blast with the repulser that knocked Thor off his feet.
Thor got up and the two ran at each other again before a burst of green sent them both stumbling back. Standing in between the two of them is Lucy.
“Enough!” Her voice carries through the room, and both Tony and Thor stand still at her tone. The attention is solely on Lucy. “You two are ridiculous!”
“Babe I -”
“Sister you - ”
“No!” She quieted them, “Shut up!”
“You,” she pointed to Tony, “take a breath and let me handle this!”
“And you!” She turned to Thor. She walked up to him and the sight was frankly pretty comical. Thor stands at 6’6” cowering in front of Lucy, who is only slightly taller than Tony. “You don’t need to come in here, waving your hammer around, trying to defend my honor anymore. I’m a grown woman!”
“I know,” Thor said in a shockingly quiet voice, “but you are my little sister and a princess, I will always want to protect you.”
Lucy walked over and put an arm lightly on Thor’s arm. “I don’t need your protection anymore, I haven’t for quite a while.”
They stand in silence before Thor smiles, “That is the longest conversation we’ve had in months that didn’t end with you trying to stab me!” He sweeps her up in his arms and squeezes tight enough to pop the head of a normal person.
“Put me down, you big oaf!”
He sets her down and Tony comes up behind her, his armor having retreated. “So, are we good?” He asks Thor.
The blond stares down at the inventor, “For now, but I know your history, Man of Iron, if my sister is ever hurt by a single one of your actions, you will face the full might of Asgard. Do we have an understanding?”
“Yep.” Tony breaths out.
“Excellent!” Thor then turns to the rest of the Avengers, who had since put down their weapons, but were no less confused. “Friends, what a joyous occasion this is! My sister and the Man of Iron!”
“Wait, back up, Thor, you have a sister?” Bruce asked.
“And she’s dating Tony?” Clint added.
“What? You don’t think I could pull a goddess?” Tony asks incredulously.
“Of course, I have a sister, you have all met Loki before!” Thor exclaims.
The team glances at Lucy, who is rubbing her temples at her brother’s words, and Tony rubbing her back soothingly.
“Loki, who is your brother?” Natasha says.
“Loki, who is sometimes my brother, and sometimes my sister! Sometimes they are neither, or even both!” He looks at their confusion and a look of realization dawns on him. “Oh, you did not recognize her in this form!”
“No, no we did not,” Steve whispers.
The team immediately turns their attention to Lucy Loki, who disappears in a shock of green, only to reappear as the Loki they know, though in much more casual clothing. He waves a little awkwardly.
Clint raises his bow again, and Natasha tenses. Tony steps in front of his boyfriend(?) and holds his hands up in a placating way. “Look, I know none of you are happy about this, Loki has barely done anything evil in the last year and a half, she’s really mellowed out since we started dating.”
“Wait, how long have you been dating?” Bruce asks.
“Two weeks after Loki got back from Asgard we went on our first date,” Tony responds.
“Tony!”
“Look I’m telling you, he’s not as bad as you all make him out to be.”
“He tried to take over the planet!” Clint shouts.
“Okay, I’ll give you that, but it was a lapse in judgment. And he’s very sorry.”
Loki did not in fact look sorry. But Tony’s words do cause Bruce to deflate, the green in his eyes fading away almost entirely. “He is right, other than the invasion, Loki is pretty harmless.”
“Harmless? I will have you know I am one of the most dangerous people in this room!” Loki responds.
“Babe, you are not helping,” Tony says back. Loki huffs but doesn’t say anything else.
“I agree with Bruce,” Steve says, setting the platter on the table. “Loki does seem to have calmed down. I guess we can let this slide.”
“Why thank you for your permission.” Tony drawls sarcastically.
The attention turns to Clint and Natasha, the only two who still seem wary.
Natasha sighs. “I’ll have to report this to Fury, but I think he’ll just be glad the most we have to deal with now are flying squirrels once a week.” She nods and sets her weapons down.
Clint takes a deep breath and follows Natasha’s lead, setting his bow down. “One wrong move and I send your ass back to space.”
“Noted,” Loki responds mildly.
Silence settles over the room before Tony asks “So, what were you guys talking about before I came crashing in?”
“We’re trying to figure out which Friends we are.” Bruce eventually says.
“Well, obviously I’m Phoebe,” Tony says
"That's what I'm saying!"