From The Ice || a Marvel Studios Fanfic

35 - The Kids

Liberty's P.O.V

All the next day at school I was feeling unnecessarily nervous. And I knew full well that I was worrying unnecessarily. There was absolutely not a reason on this earth for me to be scared of meeting the children of the Avengers. They were probably just normal, they wouldn't be too different to me, would they? I mean, I really hoped not. Plus, I'd managed to defeat the mad titan Thanos, so I knew that there was genuinely nothing more to be scared of on that front. I just hoped that they didn't look at me and get disappointed, as if they expected someone cooler.

"You'll be fine, stop worrying about it!" Peter said as we sat at lunch, he held my hand for support, somehow making me feel safer already.

"Worrying makes the experience twice as painful," Ned wisely added, making all three of us laugh at some of the wise stuff that actually came out of his mouth, even when he wasn't trying to be helpful like that.

We didn't see the others that day, but I guess it wasn't a bad thing, it did help to keep my anxiety of the day a little bit calmer, at least I didn't have to cope with the 'how did you and Peter get together' thing again until tomorrow.

When Peter walked me home again that evening after school, he hugged me so tight I actually though he was trying to make my brain pop out of my skull.

"Don't worry about tonight, I'll pop round if you fancy it, impress them with your amazing boyfriend?" Peter joked, I playfully punched his arm and hugged him again, kissing his lips lightly and then waved goodbye, going inside the house to mentally prepare myself for the evening I had ahead of me.

Dad greeted me as I walked through the door, he was dressed in a nice shirt and jeans, casual but still vaguely smart, I took that as a hint of what I should get changed into.

During the hour that followed, I got changed, refreshed myself and helped dad set up the table for the night, putting knives and forks in all of the correct places, finding mismatched chairs to put at our extended table in order to seat everyone. A total of 13 people would be in our house, possibly 14 if Peter decided to make a dramatic appearance, as he had suggested. That was a lot, and it got me nervous.

Just minutes later, there was a knock at the door and I thought dad would force me to answer it, although, thank the lord above, he didn't and he went to open the door whilst I went and fetched another chair through to the dining room. I heard the familiar voices of Aunt Nat and Uncle Clint but then two more familiar male voices. I walked through to the room again carying the chair and saw who had just walked through the door.

Let me just say, I almost dropped the hard wooden chair right on my toes.

"Liberty?!" They chorused together, looking at each otehr in amazement and then back at me.

"Max?! Hunter?!" I replied, shock filling my facial features.

All I could hear was the faint giggles of Aunt Nat, Uncle Clint and dad as they snickered at our sirutaion.

"You knew?!" I turned towards dad who then walked towards us and put an arm around me, pulling me into a sort of hug.

"Yep, we knew you went to the same school, and we wanted to show up first to see it all before the others showed up," Aunt Nat smiled, "Hunter is my son, Max is Clint's,"

I still stood there, the three of us were still in shock, clearly not expecting any of this to have happened tonight. Then the doorbell rang again and dad went to open the door, revealing Dr Banner and his son.

"Oliver?!" I gasped again, which got the attention of the boy who was stood next to his father, his glasses perched gently on the bridge of his nose.

"Liberty?!" he then gasped back at me, just as amazed as the other boys had been just minutes before.

We then went through the whole parents snickering at us again, which got me feeling a little bit suspicious, what were they hiding from me?

Thor was next, I could hear his footsteps and his booming voice even before dad opened the door. Next to him was his daughter, which was different considering that the other three had been boys so far.

"Astrid! WHAT?!" I said loudly, the amazement was not getting old, why were they all shocked to see me but not each other?

The last one of us to arrive was Uncle Tony, always fashionably late, just as I remembered his father being too before he was born and before I went under the ice. Dad didn't even need to answer the door, Tony was welcome in our house and so he just knocked lightly and walked in, bearing his aviator glasses and ACDC band t-shirt, as he usually would. Next to him was his daughter. And I genuinely could not believe what was happening, all this time I had been recognising Penny's eyes from somewhere, it turned out that they were Tony's eyes.

"So now that you all know each other, Liberty do you want to, ya know," Dad started, gesturing towards my bedroom door. I got the hint, the adults wanted to do the talking and I think dad probably wanted for me to try and explain all of this to them, try to get them all on the same page.

"Yeah, we'll be in here if you need us," I replied, getting dads hint as I moved the six of us into my bedroom, closing the door so that it wasn't entirely shut, just fitting by the doorframe. We all managed to fit on my bed, or on the chairs that dad had made me set up around my room so that there would be places for us to sit. He had planned all of this out, sneaky, very sneaky, 'mum would be proud', I laughed to myself as I sat down on my bed, the room full of the curious eyes of my friends, wanting to know what the hell was going on.