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Part 2 of An Unofficial Introduction to the Avengers , Part 1 of Natasha Romanoff, Professional Problem Solver
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2018-07-09
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Hot Chocolate

Chapter 3: The Waffles

Notes:

Just to give you guys an idea of what I'm doing: there will probably be anywhere from one to four more chapters in this fic. I'm not sure how much of what I've written will make the final cut.

Thank you all so much for your feedback, it means the world.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“Are you ready?” Natasha asks.

Steve glances around the empty apartment and nods. Natasha puts a hand on his back and he leans into it for a second, closing his eyes and letting his head drop onto her shoulder.

“If you guys could stop cuddling for a second and help me load these boxes into Clint’s van, I’d really appreciate that,” says Sam, his voice strained. “Considering you’re the one with super strength, Cap.”

The Captain nods and takes the box from Sam, disappearing out the apartment door.

“So we’re really doing this,” says Wanda distantly as Sam locks up the apartment for the last time. “We’re all moving back into the compound. As if nothing happened.”

“No,” Clint says, pulling his keys out of his pocket as they walk towards the elevator. “You guys are moving back into the compound. I’m staying the hell away from your guys’ shit show. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: you guys are making a really big mistake.”

“Thanks, Clint,” says Steve, his knuckles white against the moving box.

“Relax,” Natasha says. “You’re all overreacting. This isn’t a big deal. We’ve been moving towards it for weeks.”

“Easy for you to say,” says Sam. “You played both sides of the equation. No one’s pissed at you because you’re on everyone’s team.”

“Are you calling me a double agent?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Natasha says amenably. “That’s fair.”

“And you’re sure Tony’s okay with this,” says Steve, who’s obviously not listening to a word anyone is saying. Sam opens the door for him, and he brushes by. “You’re sure he doesn’t mind us moving back in?”

Natasha tries not to think about the hour long screaming match she had with Tony less than six hours previously.

“Tony knows it’s what’s best for the team.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re quite good at dodging questions?” asks Wanda, her tone uninterested.

“Just get in the van,” Natasha tells everyone.

If she’s being honest, she’s not sure it’s the right decision. But she’s sure as hell going to make sure that if it goes sideways, the team comes out on top.

 

___

 

As soon as they enter the communal floor, Natasha knows something is about to go wrong.

She can’t sense anything off, but Steve immediately drops into a crouch, and they’re all immediately on high alert. She can hear the TV playing in the living room, but the lights are out in the entry.

Steve holds up a hand, gesturing for them all to stop.

“C’mon, man,” Sam hisses. “It’s probably just Tony. We weren’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow morning; he’s not expecting us.”

Steve’s face is impassive. “That’s not Tony in there.”

They slink over to the door as a group, the same way they trained. If Natasha wasn’t on such high alert, she would think it was funny, the way they can all snap back into team-mode.

Steve’s hand closes around the doorknob.

“We are the Avengers,” whispers Wanda. “Whoever is in there, we can take. Why are you going so slowly?”

“I’m with Sam,” says Clint. “It’s a Friday night, Tony’s probably just watching a movie with Rhodes.”.

Friday night.

The panic hits Natasha before she’s even put two and two together. “Wait, Steve, don’t—,”

Steve throws the door open.

Natasha realizes in hindsight how it must look to them. A teenage kid, no older than sixteen, sitting on the couch in front of the TV eating a bowl of cereal. It stops every single one of them dead in their tracks.

Peter is frozen too, staring at them with his spoon halfway to his mouth. His eyes are wider then Natasha has ever seen them, which is saying something.

Everyone stands in shocked silence for about ten seconds before Peter finally speaks.

“Um, hi,” he says. “Wow. You guys are the Avengers.”

"What the fuck,” Sam says. “What the fuck.”

“You weren’t supposed to get here until tomorrow morning,” says Peter, carefully putting his spoon back in his bowl. He’s breathing heavily.

“What are you doing here?” asks Steve, his voice dangerously low.

Peter’s eyes are so wide that Natasha is genuinely worried that his face might break.

“I live here?”

“You live here,” Clint repeats disbelievingly.

“Well, not permanently,” Peter hastens to explain. “My aunt is working at a hospital in New Jersey this weekend, so I’m staying here.”

“And what are you doing here, exactly?” demands Sam, his fingers wrapped a little too tightly around his gun for Natasha’s liking.

Peter frowns. “I’m . . . eating cereal?”

Peter glances at her with a mixture of panic and wonder, and Natasha is broken out of her stupor.

“This is Peter,” she says, firmly putting herself between him and the rogues. “Peter, meet Sam, Steve, Clint, Wanda.”

“We’ve met,” says Wanda, smiling slightly at Peter. “How’s MJ?”

“Girl, don’t even,” says Peter. “She never shuts up about you, I swear to god. It legitimately hurts my feelings—,”

“Peter,” calls Tony from the kitchen, and Natasha feels her gut wrench as the situation goes from bad to worse. “Why is the box of Sugar-O’s on the counter?”

“I felt like cereal,” Peter calls back, not taking his eyes off the Rogues.

“When you said you were going to get dinner, I thought you meant, like, pizza or some shit,” Tony says, entering the living room, his eyes fixed on Peter. “You do realize you’re essentially eating pure
cane sugar, right?”

“I put some skittles in there, too,” Peter says. “Balanced diet, and all that.”

“I don’t even know how to respond to that,” Tony fumes. “Congratulations, you have officially rendered me speechless. I thought you were supposed to be a child prodigy, how could you possibly think that—”

“Tony,” Natasha says, genuinely worried about the rogues’ brains short circuiting.

Tony slowly spins on his heel, coming face to face with the Rogue Avengers for the first time in months.

The room goes deadly silent.

“You’re early,” Tony says finally. “You weren’t supposed to get here until tomorrow.”

“That’s what I said,” says Peter through a mouthful of skittles and cereal. “They didn’t seem to care.”

“Peter,” says Tony, his voice deadly and low. “I think I left my phone in the lab. Can you please go get it for me?”

Peter frowns. “I’m eating cereal.”

Tony grits his teeth, his eyes fixed firmly on the Rogues. “So put it down and finish it later.”

“It’ll get soggy.”

“Peter, please.”

There’s a sharp edge to his voice that Natasha rarely hears. Peter carefully nods and makes a beeline for the door without further protest.

He pauses in the doorway, glancing back at the Rogues.

“It was really nice to meet you guys,” he says. His tone shakes slightly, but his eyes contact is firm. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“That’s funny,” says Clint, tilting his head to one side. “Because we haven’t heard anything about you.”

“And it’s going to stay that way,” says Tony quietly. “Peter, phone.”

Peter turns on his heel and disappears.

A heavy silence falls through the room again.

“This was one of your better ideas, Tasha,” says Tony, the same bitter edge to his voice. “No, seriously, locking all of us in a building together? Fantastic. What could possibly go wrong?”

“We don’t want to fight you anymore, Tony,” says Steve quietly. “We’re past that.”

Tony’s jaw clenches. “And the Winter Soldier?”

“He’s gone,” says Natasha firmly. “He’s off the grid. Somewhere safe. He’ll get in touch with Steve when he’s ready. He won’t be stopping by for family movie night, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Tony nods jerkily.

“I have to go,” he says. “I’m sure you guys remember the layout of the place?”

Tony doesn’t wait for an answer. He follows Peter down to the lab, grabbing the discarded bowl of cereal on his way out.

 

___

 

Natasha finds Peter in the kitchen later that night, sometime between two and three. He’s staring transfixed at an open dell processer in front of him. She silently makes the both hot chocolate and sets the steaming mug in front of him.

“Thanks,” he says, smiling at her with bloodshot eyes.

Natasha frowns. “How long have you been awake?”

“I haven’t gone to sleep yet,” he admits. “We were in the lab until midnight, and I have a ten page research paper on the molecular biology of cellular reparation due Monday. I just started it.”

“That’s poor planning.”

“No, that’s high school,” Peter says, grinning. “Midtown, to be exact. They take a bunch of kids with an A plus average, make the new average a C, and have them battle for 4.0s in a way that makes the Hunger Games look like a pep rally.”

Natasha raises her eyebrows.

“The essay is extra credit,” clarifies Peter. “I flunked a test on naming acids.”

“That seems like the kind of thing you’d be really good at,” Natasha says.

“I didn’t study,” Peter explains. “I meant to, I just forgot. That’s the life of a part time vigilante for you.”

“You should prioritize sleep over school, and school over Spiderman,” Natasha tells him.

“You sound like May,” he complains.

“There are worse people to sound like.”

“True,” Peter says, smiling slightly. “May is the best. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without her.”

“You guys are close?” asks Natasha, more as a prompt than a question.

“Yeah, we’re tight,” Peter says. “I think it throws a lot of people, because we’re not even related biologically, you know? Ben was my dad’s brother. There were people who thought that, after Ben died, she was going to release custody to the state. But she’d never; she’s not like that. She’s a really good person.”

Natasha raises her eyebrows at the faux-casual tone.

“Is that what you thought she’d do?”

“I wouldn’t have blamed her,” says Peter. He smiles, trying to pass it off as a joke, but the look in his eyes is too intense. “I’ve put her through a lot over the years, you know? She and Ben were never even planning on having kids.”

“The right choice is usually unplanned.”

“Like what?” Peter asks eagerly, leaning forward.

Natasha pauses, looking into Peter’s wide eyes. She realizes with a pang that she can’t leave him hanging now, not into the midst of whatever existential crisis he’s having. Natasha chews her lip, sorting through all the stories she can tell him. Most of her life experiences are too fucked up to put on the shoulders of a teenager, super strength be damned.

“Okay,” she says finally. “Here’s an example. I’m not sure if you know this or not, but a couple of years ago we dumped all of Shield—and Hydra’s—Intel onto the web.”

Peter nods emphatically. “Oh, yeah. I remember that. We studied a lot of it in government last year. It was super interesting, even if it was hard to understand.”

“I was never intending to have all my covers blown,” says Natasha distantly, and suddenly she’s back in that building, dumping all the files online while Alexander Pierce goads her. “I’d spent decades making sure that information never saw the light of day, and then suddenly, out of the blue, I was releasing it for the whole world to see.”

Peter’s eyes are burning with curiosity. “Why’d you do it, then?”

Natasha stares into the distance. “It’s complicated.”

Peter leans foward. “In my experience that either means you don’t know, or you don’t want to tell me.”

Natasha laughs softly. “No. It really is complicated. I think in the end, I leaked those files because it was the right thing to do, and it was what Steve wanted. Leaking my life’s work was just a means to an end. Lives were at stake.”

“But you don’t regret it,” says Peter eagerly. “It was unplanned, but it was for the best?”

“It was the right thing to do,” Natasha says. “And I’m thankful I made the choice, even if I’m now officially too famous to do anymore undercover work.”

“You miss being undercover?”

Natasha meets his eyes. They stare back at her, wide and earnest.

“I don’t necessarily miss the undercover ops. But I miss being sure of my identity.”

 

___

 

When Natasha enters the kitchen in the morning, Steve, Sam, and Clint are staring transfixed at Peter while he pours batter into a waffle iron.

“My research paper on the molecular biology of cellular reparation is due Monday,” Peter is telling them animatedly. “I wanted to do starfish, you know, because they’re the obvious choice.”

“Right,” says Sam, staring at him in confusion. “So obvious, don’t you think, Steve.”

Steve doesn’t look like he knows how to respond.

“I guess lizards would be a good choice, too, because they can regrow their tails,” Peter explains. “But I figure every other kid who’s writing the essay is going to pick one of those two options, so I’m thinking about writing it about what kind of tech it would take for humans to be able to do it. I mean think about it, if we had that kind of tech we could revolutionize modern medicine—,”

Clint leans over to her, his eyes wide.

“I thought I was the only Avenger with kids,” he whispers.

“I think Scott has a daughter,” Natasha says, pouring herself coffee. “Katy, right? No, Cassie.”

Clint gives her a dirty look. “You could’ve told me. They’re so similar, Tasha. I mean, Jesus.”

"Wait," says Natasha, stopping in her tracks. "You actually think that-,"

“Hey, Nat,” says Peter, looking up from the waffle iron for the first time. “Do you want a waffle? I think Mr. Stark has some whipped cream, and I have skittles and gummy bears to add flavor and texture.”

Sam and Steve exchange a confused look.

“I don’t know if I like waffles,” Natasha says. “I’ve never had one.”

“Pro tip,” say Clint. “This kid is a psychopath. Do not, under any circumstances, put skittles or gummy bears anywhere near that batter.

Peter holds out a plate to her.

“You’ll never know unless you try,” he tells her.

Natasha hesitates, then takes the plate from him.

(They’re not cooked through, and they burn the hell out of her tongue. It’s still the best thing she’s ever tasted.)

Notes:

The comments being left on this fic legitimately make me glow. Every five minutes when I check my email, new ones show up and they just make me so happy, you know? I read and reread them over and over again, you guys have no idea. The amount of warm fuzzies I've gotten is mind boggling.

Also: for those of you asking about my update schedule, I do everything I can to update daily.