It was another week since the hulk incident and everyone had been on eggshells around Bruce, which bothered him more than a little. In fact Tony was the only one who want completely terrified of him, but Tony's reaction was much worse.
"No, Tony. You can't poke Bruce with that," Tom said, pulling the fork out of Tony's small hand.
"But I'm experimentin' to see how many pokes it takes to turn Brucie green."
"I said stop calling me Brucie, I'm not a baby," the other boy whined, not too eager to be a part of the other boy's 'experimentin' but certainly in no position to turn down a friend.
"But Bruce sounds like an old person name."
"Nu-hu."
"Uh-hu."
"Nu-"
"Both of you! Be quiet. Tony go find Maria in the kitchen, she wanted to talk to you about something," Tom instructed.
"And Bruce, you need to be careful that you don't get angry. The doctors almost have a way to get rid of, of the other guy, but it could take another day or two, so stick to reading, 'kay?"
"Okay." Bruce started walking back to his room to get the book he was currently reading, Skulduggery Pleasant.
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"So, Maria, you wan'ed to see me?" Tony asked.
"Yea, Tony, I did." Maria turned away from the carrot she was chopping (badly) and faced Tony.
"Look, I know all of this has been a bit strange. It can't be easy." The 'losing your parents' was unspoken, but implied.
"I know you're a good kid, but you need to learn to play well with the others. So far you've just been trying to annoy Bruce, and teasing everyone else for no reason."
"I was esperimentin' with Brucie," Tony cut in, but Maria stopped him.
"That doesn't make it right. Why don't you try and play with some of the other kids? Pepper's always looking for a tea-party guest, and she seems to really like you, or you could see if Jan or Bobbi need any help with anything, you could go and find Clint in the air ducts, as long as you come back out for dinner. There's loads of things you could do instead of messing."
Just then, Pepper wandered into the kitchen holding a plastic tea pot and a lump of, slightly chewed, plastic food.
"Mawia, will you pway wif me? 'Cause Cwint said he won't, and Steve had an ama hack, but Jan saved him and he's havin' a nap, and Thow said is too baby-ish." Pepper gave Maria her most adorable puppy-dog eyes.
"Sorry, honey. I have to make you all dinner, but Tony might play if you ask nicely."
"Pwease, pwease, pweeeeeeeeease," Pepper asked, batting her eyelashes in a way no three-year-old should know how.
Tony grunted a response and followed Pepper into the play room, mentally preparing himself for all the plastic food he would have to pretend to eat
Maria laughed at how, even as a six year old, Tony was still willing to do whatever it took to stay on Pepper's good side.
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"Jan, Jan!" Hank called, running down the corridor to the bedrooms.
"Yea, what is it?" she replied sleepily, it was ten am, but since the helicarier incident she and Bobbi had found themselves sleeping in much later than usual, and would often emerge from their shared room around noon and take the kids off Maria and Tom for a few hours so they could have a break from being the parents of seven kids under seven.
Of course, Bobbi was a much heavier sleeper and was still snoring peacefully when Hank burst into the room.
"I wanted you to be the first to know, well Reed knows, I had to run some numbers by him but he's sure it will work, and obviously I told Fury, he was excited, imagine that. Nick Fury, excited! Must be the teenage hormones, I'll have to see if he's let me run a scan before he takes it. But that doesn't matter because IT'S READY! And technically I'm still telling you first....." Hank was doubled over, gasping for breath, but Jan still saw how happy he looked, even though her sleep addled brain couldn't figure out why.
"What is it Hank? What did you do?"
"I cracked it, I, I," he wheezed, "I figured out how to turn us all back! I did it. It took ages, but I did it!"
"Oh, Hank, I'm so proud of you," Jan squealed, waking up Bobbi, before she grabbed him and kissed him.
"Ugh, you two, get a room would you? Preferably not mine. And why do you both look so happy, its ten am, no one's happy this early." But after they explained everything to Bobbi, she began dancing around the room singing "I'm gonna get my body back, I'm gonna get my body back".
"Now all we have to do is wait for the computer to synthesise the antidote, and that shouldn't take more than a week or two."
Hank ran off to tell Maria and Tom, who were both overjoyed to finally have reassurance that they wouldn't be parents for much longer.
"I don't know how we would have dealt with Tony in the teenage years," Tom joked when he saw Maria was tearing up just a little. She had grown ridiculously attached to these kids, and the thought of having to let them go did upset her a bit.
"Yea, and can you imagine trying to re-train Nat? Or Clint? Every-" Sniffle "Everything will go back to normal, and we can go back on missions again," Maria added, mostly for her own benefit. It was hard to believe she had once hated the Avengers for their childishness and unpredictability, but now it was her favourite thing about them.
"Come on, Ri. I think news this big is double-chocolate-pancake worthy!" Tom said hopefully.
It was a bit of a tradition of theirs that every time either of them arrived back from a mission alive they would make double chocolate pancakes, which was pancake batter with cocoa powder and chocolate chips. Maria preferred keeping it special just for the two of them to celebrate not being dead, but Tom loved to find any excuse to have them, and even Maria could admit that this was a pancake worthy celebration.
"Alright. You round up the kids and I'll get the batter ready," Maria instructed, searching through a cupboard for the ingredients.
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"These are so good," Tony mumbled through a ridiculously large mouthful of pancake.
"Don't eat with your mouth closed," Maria chided.
"Don't eat with your mouth closed?" Tony repeated, giggling.
"Oh you know what I mean," Maria grumbled, the early mornings and frequent middle-of-the-night visits from the kids meant that her sleeping hours had been reduced quite a bit, which wouldn't have been too bad on a mission, but then again, fighting off fifteen armed men with nothing but a piece of rope and a table leg was nothing compared to chasing around after seven kids all day.
"Can I have some more?" Clint asked, despite having already had three large pancaked, as well as cereal and toast for breakfast only a few hours earlier.
"No way, you'll explode," Tom said, poking his tummy.
"Nuh-hu," Clint giggled, almost falling off his chair.
"I'm a big boy, I could eat a hundred more pancakes before I explode," he added, emphasising the hundred by spreading his hands wide above his head.
"Nope, you've had your fill, I'm going to bring the last one down to Hank's lab, to congr- so he doesn't feel left out," Maria said, quickly adding the last part because the kids still didn't know anything about their past lives, and it would be very difficult to explain to seven kids that they were actually a team of superheroes, and a superheroes secretary/girlfriend.
"I'll be back in a minute."
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"Thanks," Hank mumbled tiredly after Maria presented him with the pancake piled high with whipped cream, nutella and maple syrup.
"Anything for our resident genius," Maria replied.
"So, two weeks max, then we get our team back, right?" she continued.
"That's the plan. Currently the, well antidote I suppose, will be complete in about ten days, but even with any delays this whole thing will be over within the fortnight."
"Great, and this will fix you and Jan, and Bobbi as well?"
"Everyone who's been affected by AAR, Age-altering-radiation, will go back to how old they should be, by factoring in how long ago they were changed, and their ages at the time," Hank explained.
"What about their memories?" Maria asked.
"I can't know for sure, but my best guess is that they will remember some of the experience, but like with dreams, most of it will fade. They should go back to exactly as they were before."
"Okay." Maria left then. It was a lot to take in. That these kids she had been raising, for what felt like forever, wouldn't remember her at all. All the love, and care, all the midnight nightmares, and early mornings. It would be like none of it ever happened.
It was probably for the best. Maria didn't need any of the Avengers to treat her any differently, just because she had been their temporary mommy.
Things would go back to the way they had been, and it would be as if none of it had ever happened.
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So, another chapter. I'm so sorry for how long it's been, and I really with I had an excuse for you guys, but I'm not sure that watching Doctor Who and reading fanfic, and starting about fifty bazillion other stories i will never finish, counts, sorry again.
About the contest, It's still happeneing, but I've only got two entries and I was really hoping for more, so I'm extendin the contest to the 31st of September, because that's my first Saturday after starting back at school, and because I have major exams this year, my mum will be enforcing the 'no laptop during the week' rule, and that's when I'm going to write the last chapter.
If I don't get any more entries then I'll pick between the two I have, but I'd love to get some more, anything counts from a hundred word drabble to five thousand word one-shot.
I'll read it all the way through and give advice in the comments no matter what, and I'll add it to my list of one-shots for this story.
So, please, if you have any inspiration at all (or even if you want to take a scene I've written already and change it in any way) let me know and I'll go check it out.
Love you guys
Littlesemble!