Work Text:
+1
Clint blinked awake rather suddenly, unsure as to his location and in serious pain. He had been slammed off a building by whatever the hell their enemy was this time….some sort of alien-lizard combination with tails and stuff. Huh, he’d have to remember that very technical definition for his mission report; Phil might actually smile for once, and wouldn’t that just freak Tony out? Clint pushed at the wall behind him, trying to rise to his feet despite the shooting pain in his head and thigh. He looked down at his leg, trying to gauge the damage. The gash was deep, and bleeding heavily; his waking up and trying to move probably hadn’t helped that. He glanced up suddenly, the creak of rusted hinges alerting him to the presence of another in the secluded alleyway.
A young girl stood in a doorway just down the alley, curly brown-black hair and lightly tanned skin backlit by the warm lighting of her home as she stepped out and glanced over at him, closing the door behind her and cutting off the light. When he tried again to struggle to his feet she pushed him back down, silently ignoring his protests and slapping his hand away when he tried to stop her putting a wet rag to his wound in order to clean it. Clint’s head was getting fuzzier and fuzzier; he could barely make out the girl’s form at the edge of his vision as she cleaned the wound and bandaged it carefully. Almost as soon as she had finished bandaging him up another, smaller, girl slipped from the doorway carrying a tray of food consisting of a bowl of light soup, a glass of water and two over-the-counter pain meds. He smiled faintly and thanked her before downing the pain meds and digging into the soup. He ate quickly, knowing he needed to get back to the fight soon or else Nat’d be having kittens (and no one wanted that). A vague thought passed through Clint’s head, something about an earpiece….his eyes shot wide as he reached up to his ear, finding it empty of a comm unit and searching the ground around him for it.
“You crushed it.” He looked up, questioning.
“The little electronic ear piece was crushed when you fell, you’re lucky the bow and quiver didn’t meet the same fate.” He sighed, just his luck wasn’t it? A second later the girl was helping Clint to his feet and her little sister was handing him his weapons with a gap-toothed grin. He smiled down at her and ruffled her hair, thanking both girls and turning down the alley to get back to the fight. He’d have to memorize the landmarks around here so he could come back to visit, the girl was good with medical stuff.
+2
Natasha glared at her gun, positioned stubbornly at the feet of her latest target as his goons pinned her to the floor. Her lip was bleeding and she had a small gash on her arm from a stray bullet, but she wasn’t in too bad of shape overall, and normally she’d be able to take out the two over-muscled monkeys no problem with this level of damage; however, this was not a normal situation. She’d known the man was scum, but grabbing his young step daughter and holding a gun to her head? That was a whole different level scum. The girl was struggling in his hold, green eyes flaring and pale, freckled skin flushed from her struggle. She had flaming red hair and a temper to match - she’d bitten her step-father earlier when he’d put his hand over her mouth to shut her up - but it wasn’t doing her much good as she was now.
Or so Nat had thought until the girl caught her eye and “accidentally” caught Nat’s gun while flailing, sending it skidding to rest right next to her left hand. She felt a grin cross her face, time moving in slow motion as she grabbed the gun and pulled the trigger. She knew the shot connected, knew it had killed, and she flipped the goons off, knocking them out on the cold floor. She turned back to the redhead, finding her slumped on the ground next to her step-father’s body. The girl turned and looked up at Natasha, a slight smile crossing her face.
“Thank you.”
“He was a target, I’m being paid for that kill.”
“And?” The girl’s shoulders shrugged slightly, “He was an abusive bastard and he killed my mom, he deserved what he got. Even if thinking that makes me a bad person, I’m not going to regret it.”
“Don’t. Don’t regret your thoughts, just don’t act on them.” The words fell from Natasha’s lips unbidden, the slight smile that accompanied them aimed at the fierce eleven-year-old sitting on the floor before her.
“Do you have any family I can take you to stay with?” The girl nodded, giving Natasha an aunt’s address when she requested it and walking out to Nat’s bike to get her ride home. Natasha knew she’d grow into a fierce young woman.
+3
Steve woke to a rather frail-looking girl slapping him across the face in what appeared to be fear laced with determination. She had her hair pulled back into a ponytail and her glasses were sliding down her nose, but she seemed to be more focused on getting him awake. He groaned, his face was actually beginning to kind of ache from all the slapping. She stopped almost instantly, sighing in relief as she helped him gingerly to his feet rambling on about how she’d thought he was dead and she was really glad he wasn’t and thank you so much for everything you do. He stopped her mid-sentence, patting her on the head and smiling down at her; a simple “thanks” slipping past his lips as he turned to head back into the fighting.
“Captain, Sir! I-I think you m-might need this out there!” her arms were shaking with the strain of holding up his (rather heavy) shield. His smile widened and he thanked her again, telling her to get to safety before heading back into the fight. No one-except maybe Tony (why does he always know everything?)-would have to know about him sheepishly handing her a food court cookie in weeks-late thanks, during a quick chance meeting at the mall.
+4
Sam was cornered, he had a doombot on either side of him, too close to open his wings, and he was sporting a dislocated shoulder as well. He knew the others were too occupied with Doom’s army to help him, and his comm was shot anyway. However, help came from an unexpected quarter; two pairs of combat boots sweeping the bots off their feet before club-like metal pipes smashed them to pieces. He blinked, staring at the identical girls standing across from him. They grinned at him, then turned to each other and slapped their hands together in a high five before turning back to him, still grinning widely.
“I-uh...Thanks.” Sam sighed, outrun by a 90+ and saved by teenagers. It was just not his day. Or week. Or anything really, now that he thought about it. Dear god.
“No problem man..”
“...want us to get that shoulder back in place for you?” They even did the twin sentence completion thing that books and stuff always talked about….why him?
He nodded and one girl grabbed his arm while the other held his shoulder steady. Seconds later pain shot through his shoulder and the girls stepped away.
“That should be good to go.”
“Just be gentle on that shoulder for a bit.” Sam scoffed slightly at that, making the girls smirk.
“I’ll certainly try. Thanks for the help.” Just moments later, the twin girls had disappeared down a nearby alley and he was heading back towards the main fight.
+5
Tony was screwed. Royally, terribly screwed. He was running on only two thrusters already and one of those was close to failing. Like he said, screwed. Though they’d finished the fight just fine, Tony had decided to fly back to Stark Tower and was only about halfway there when the first thruster failed him. Which meant he needed to make an emergency landing. Damn it.
“Jarvis?”
“Yes, sir?” Bit of white noise, but not so much as to be alarming.
“Where’s the nearest mechanic’s shop?”
“Just below you, sir. Do try not to alarm anyone on your landing.” Silently rolling his eyes, Tony worked himself into a descent (admittedly a rather fast one). About a foot and a half above the pavement, both his remaining thrusters failed him, dumping him onto the pavement. Shaking off his disorientation from the fall, Tony stumbled to his feet and towards the mechanics shop about twenty feet away. A younger woman, maybe in her mid-thirties, stood watching him from the garage entrance. Her long, curly blonde hair was pulled back away from her face and sharp caramel eyes pinned him in place for an instant before she turned away and motioned him into the garage.
Once inside, she shoved him down into a chair and pulled over a table covered in a wide variety of tools and scraps. Tony removed his face mask, gloves, and boots (letting the rest of the armor draw apart and slide to the floor) before reaching for a small screwdriver.
Slap! The noise rang through the garage, and Tony stared at the woman before him. She had pulled off her gloves and slapped his hand away from the tools. One of her newly revealed hands, the right, was made entirely of metal and joined to her wrist by a metal plate full of wires that apparently ran all through the joints of her replacement appendage.
“My garage, my rules, my workshop. Besides, you just finished a fight and you were shaking in your suit when you got here. You need to rest for now.” He nodded, speechless for once. She turned away from him and towards the side door, shouting something in a language he couldn’t understand. Someone replied from the other side of the door, and Marina (if her name tag was correct), returned to the table where his gloves and boots rested.
He couldn’t hold his curiosity much longer, blurting out the question that had been itching at him since seeing her hand. “How did you build that hand and get it to move so smoothly as to be able to do detailed mechanical work?” She blinked at him, then sighed and drew up a chair for herself across the table from him.
“I will tell you, just rest for now and I’ll repair your suit while we talk about it.” Tony leaned forward in his chair and started in on the barrage of questions running through his head.
LATER THAT DAY
Tony waved goodbye to Marina and her young son, testing his newly-repaired thrusters and grinning widely at the perfect repair job. He’d been allowed to help Marina with the repairs after a light lunch of sandwiches and lemonade, making the process that much faster. Two hours and lots of talking later, Tony was ready to head back to Stark Tower with a fully repaired set of thrusters and plenty of new ideas to put to use. He might just have to ask Pepper about forming a business partnership with Marina in order to produce affordable prosthetics similar to the one the single mother had designed for herself after the car crash that had taken her hand.
“Sir?”
“Yes, Jarvis?”
“Miss Potts is ranting about tearing your head off for being gone so long with no contact whatsoever.”
“Crap.” Tony was screwed. Totally, royally screwed. But at least he had a peace offering, right?
-1
The battle was won, though only barely. They stood together in the ruins of Lafayette Street in Lower Manhattan, just taking in the destruction. Crumbling walls, overturned cars, enormous craters in the streets, the still-sparking limbs of their robotic foes. Cap had a laser graze on his left leg, Natasha was favoring one shoulder where she’d been thrown into a wall, Clint had blood drying on his face from a cut on his forehead, Tony was barely standing, and even Thor was looking rundown and beaten as they took a moment just to rest and briefly grieve. This fight had brought old wounds back to the surface for many of them, and each needed the time to recover so as to properly face the others.
The moment was broken by a slight scuffling in the rubble a block away which set them all instantly on edge, Tony swearing slightly as they turned to see what it was coming their way. A tiny girl dressed in a pink tutu and leotard, totally barefoot, and slightly dusty was carefully clambering over the rubble with a look of extreme concentration on her face and Mjolnir clutched to her chest. Upon seeing the adults watching, a wide smile split her little face nearly in half and she started to toddle a bit faster towards them, nearly running. She carefully avoided all the sharp little bits of rubble and stopped about two feet away from Thor. He crouched slowly and reached one hand out towards her. She blinked wide eyes at him and walked up to him gingerly before reverently placing the hammer in his hands. Thor smiled at her and she smiled back, shyly looking down at her little feet before looking back up and saying, “Tank you all verry much for everyting.” (Natasha would later swear she’d never seen the men of the team so close to heart attacks from sheer adorableness before or since.)
She hugged everyone on the team as best she could and stopped at Thor, holding up her arms and giving him puppy eyes until he picked her up. They brought her out of the rubble and Thor carried her to an emergency worker who checked her feet and cleaned her up before the whole team went to return her to her parents.