Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The buzzing was like a chainsaw being held inches from his face. Pietro put a hand out in a bleary but earnest attempt to fend it off, whatever it was. Killer insect robot? Deadly sonic attack? Bone saw? These were all viable candidates when one was an Avenger.

Pietro groaned. He did not feel like an Avenger at the moment. He barely felt like a person. What the hell happened last night? Buzzzz buzzzzzz. And why did his body feel like it had been put through a paper shredder? Buzzzzzzzzzzz. And what was that amazing smell?

Propping himself up on one elbow was a risky move; every little motion threatened to tip his nauseous stomach over like a canoe. When he made it upright—possibly the slowest he’d moved in four years; he hadn’t moved this carefully when he had gunshot wounds—he found that the source of the deafening buzzing was the gentle vibration of his phone.

Three unread emails. Six voicemails, and fifty-two unread texts—no, make that fifty-three. His screen lit up again. Fifty-five.

The most recent text on display read, Hey valentine, this is Cami from last night 😘 The answer to your question is yes

Cami? Who the fuck was Cami? What question? (His drunken self better not have proposed to a stranger again.) Pietro’s eyes roved his bedroom for clues, reminded of the Sokovian subbed episodes of Blue's Clues he used to watch as a teenager to improve his English.

Jogging suit in a heap by the bed. That was normal. No women’s clothing around it, so he probably didn’t hook up last night. Not to brag, but Pietro’s lovers usually stayed around for the next morning—Pietro wouldn’t be living up to his name if he hadn’t truly mastered the art of the morning after quickie. Sneakers by the door, bottoms totally burnt off.

“My favorite pair,” Pietro despaired, his thickly accented morning voice creaky and pitiful.

What possessed him last night to make him run through his favorite Dunks? They were holographic, just a little—just the right amount. Barton made fun of him, but Pietro strongly felt they weren’t half so bad as most of the flashy pocket square bullshit Stark paraded around in. He saw the shoes in a storefront window display after relocating to New York and was halfway to stealing them before he realized he didn’t have to. They were the first thing he ever bought himself since starting his new life here. They were beautiful. And now they were gone.

His eyes roamed further. Bouquet of roses. Or what used to be a bouquet of roses; the petals were almost totally gone, so it was really just a collection of thorny stems tied with a ribbon. He must have gone running with them. Ah, something he does remember. A pity bouquet. From Wanda. Ah yes, yesterday was Valentine's Day. Pietro could remember his sister’s heartfelt expression as she gave him the white roses and a hug, her AI boyfriend grinning peacefully behind her. She wanted her brother to feel the happiness she was feeling. She didn’t want him to feel lonely or left out that day. Her worries were totally unfounded, of course. Pietro had plenty of company, whether it was his brothers and sisters in arms living together in Avengers Tower or the brief but lovely company of a new female friend. He was quite good at making new female friends. He wasn’t ‘lonely.’

And he hadn’t been alone on Valentine’s Day. Pietro vaguely remembered sitting at a bar with Thor, whose lady love was out of the country. When had they left the bar, though? His Enhanced metabolism usually burned through alcohol like dry kindling. What the hell had they been drinking?

A dirty glass left on top of the wardrobe. An empty milk carton. Who drank a half gallon of milk last night?

“The fuck?”

Pietro’s stomach gurgled in response. Because of course it was him.

Concluding his 360 degree scan of the room, his eyes landed on a something near the foot of the bed. An open container of cookies. Not pre-packaged, convenience store cookies. Nice cookies, in nice tupperware—the fluted glass kind with a plastic lid. Pietro scented the air again. Ahhh there it was. That vanilla, that brown sugar, that hint of chocolate, that… rosemary? It was a large package, but only four cookies remained. Pietro’s stomach complained loudly again. Wanda did not give him cookies with his pity roses. He had no memory of them whatsoever.

Clearly he hadn’t gone straight home after the bar last night. Where and why he had gone remained to be seen. He concentrated, really concentrated, on summoning the memories back up from the black.

He emptied his mind. He let the quiet and the stillness envelop him for as long as it took. Pietro dug deep and quietly meditated on the task to the utmost bounds of his patience.

After four whole seconds, he still had nothing.

As a last ditch effort, hoping sensory stimulation would jog his out-of-shape memory, Pietro reached for the cookies. Not too thick but soft with ripples on top. Freckled with tiny flecks of dark chocolate, kissed with flakes of sea salt. He was hungover as hell, but he would be lying if he said the smell wasn’t tempting.

He put one in his mouth.

“Mother of god.” Who was responsible for this?

Your name was Bea Dorsey and you hadn’t slept in three days, which explained a lot of things: Why your face was sallow with purple rings beneath your eyes. Why your fingers trembled from your third coffee of the day—well, night. Why the lights studding the New York sidewalk seemed to keep pulsing brighter and then dimmer. Why you were wearing your sweater inside out. Why you were hallucinating that a six-foot-something streak of silver and peroxide just mugged you. Or hit on you? Both?

It was a chilly Valentines Day. You thought you felt the February wind whipping at your back, but then the wind changed to blow against your face, doubling back and spinning around you like a Tasmanian devil.

“What is that smell?” slurred the wind. It was an Eastern European wind.

You slowly blinked your sleep-deprived, bloodshot eyes at the man suddenly in your space, hanging off your shoulder. But he had no intention of waiting for you to process his question.

“Lovely,” the white-blond hallucination breathed as he took another whiff above the clear container in your hands. “Printsessa, you shouldn’t have, for me.” He leaned an affectionate weight onto your shoulders. The smell of alcohol perfumed the air.

In general, despite being small, you tended not to worry about street harassment since you were more than capable of incapacitating any unlucky schmuck fool enough to underestimate you just because you were unassuming. However, that tended to be a lot of paperwork and when you were this tired, you couldn’t be sure if this guy was even real, let alone a threat requiring you to use your abilities.

You squinted up, trying to focus your eyes and figure out whether this was real. He had awfully detailed stubble for a hallucination. Awfully sharp jaw, too—

“Ah, but of course I will be your valentine, my little freckled moth.” He squeezed your shoulders tight. What the fu— “You must be mine as well, of course,” he prattled on, so blitzed his eyes weren’t even open. What kind of drug was this crazy person on and had the American military weaponized it yet?

“Here is my valentine for you, draga mea. Hold it by your heart and think of me always.” A piece of paper appeared before your eyes. His number. Gee, what a romantic.

“Are you on speed?” you managed to cut in between his rapidfire nonsense.

Rather than taking offense, he pulled a face as if you’d said something adorable. His cold hands smushed your cheeks. “Mielul mea is so clever. Yes, printsessa, I am forever on speed, as you say.”

Where were his gloves? It was 12 degrees out and he didn’t even have a coat on. Lightweight blue-grey underarmor was all that stood between his impressive torso and the elements. You blinked at his biceps. Another bullet point for the ‘hallucination’ column. Wait, were those… wings? Yeah, hallucination. Definitely a hallucination.

A stray feather from said tacky costume wings landed on your nose as the junkie wagged a dismissive hand before you, shushing you though you weren’t saying anything. You’d barely had time to say anything, he was moving and chattering so quickly.

“No, you must not thank me. It is all in a day’s work for Cupid, valentina.” He attempted a cocky leer, but the effect on his handsome face was spoiled by one of his eyelids drooping slightly lower than the other. Don’t do drugs, kids. “Spreading love and saving the world.” His mouth cutely warped the ‘w’ in ‘world.’

“I will be a faithful valentine, thinking only of yyy—” his head whipped around to track the progress of a leggy girl walking by who was as poorly dressed for the weather as he was, laminated in a bright violet sheath dress, “—yyyo, printsessa!”

And off he went, his fading voice already professing his love for the next valentine. “How fate has drawn us together today, ah, frumoasa?” he called to her as he caught up. “Cupid comes for you!”

He couldn’t have actually been that fast; he was just blurry because your brain was about to shut down from sleep deprivation. You blinked at the thin air the ripped guy had disappeared from, then blinked down.

Okay, you were pretty loopy-tired, but you were fairly sure you had a huge container of your best cookies—the ones that took twelve hours to make, the ones that all your hopes for a liveable week rested on—in your hands a few seconds ago. You stared hard at your empty gloved palms waiting for the cookies to reappear.

What the shit.

“Question, Speedy: Did you happen to go out last night?”

Pietro groaned over his mug of coffee. He usually avoided caffeine, but this was a singular morning.

“Uh huh,” Stark nodded. “And when your hyperactive metabolism wouldn’t let you get wasted enough to deal with National Singles Awareness Day, did you drink Asgardian booze shot for shot with a literal god?”

Groan.

“And when you went out and made a lot of shiny new lady friends, did you happen to give your number out?”

Groan. Pietro was forced to turn his phone to silent this morning after the eighth voicemail came in—though it was flattering to know that even blackout drunk, his game was good enough to get some callbacks. ‘Still got it,’ he’d thought to himself. It was a little more disconcerting to find out that at some point in the wee hours of the morning, in a drunken burst of love and enthusiasm, he’d made plans with every girl who texted him. And the numbers were absurd.

“And when you ran out of cards, you didn’t happen to start giving out mine instead, did you?”

Groan—actually, no that one’s still pretty funny in the morning. Pietro made an ambivalent hand gesture without looking up. Looking up meant sunlight in his eyes.

Stark’s voice was becoming strained with annoyance. “My private number has been getting calls nonstop and if it doesn’t end soon I’m going to—”

Before Stark could catch Pietro smiling instead of apologizing, FRIDAY interrupted. “Call on your personal line from a Hoboken, NJ number. A Miss Charity Weekes. Should I put her through?”

Stark just scrubbed a hand over his face. “Exactly how many strippers did you give my personal card out to?”

“There is no way of knowing.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Sir?” FRIDAY interjected.

Tony sighed in the midst of refilling his mug, then paused with a tilted head before asking FRIDAY, “… Is she cute?”

It wasn’t in your coat pocket, your jean pocket, or your bag. You even checked inside the beanie you’d been wearing last night. Nothing. You were groggy still after waking up at 2 PM—you disliked taking sleeping pills, your body didn’t respond to them well, but the cookies were missing and sixty-two hours without sleep meant desperate measures—so you checked all these places twice just to be sure.

That recipe card was possibly the most precious thing you’d ever gotten your hands on. The most secret of the secret family recipes. Aunt Silvie’s Twelve Hour Cookies. Your own mother didn’t even know the recipe, but after twenty-five years, your grandmother had finally entrusted it to you.

Twelve hours was too long to wait for cookies and twenty-five years was too long to wait for a recipe, but if there were words you lived by, it would be that waiting for the right moment was always worth it.

The cookies were indulgent, laborious, and utterly worth it. A rare treat throughout your childhood that seemed to dry all tears and cure all ills. It was a longshot that they would fix your insomnia when countless specialists, pills, herbal infusions, and an enterprising monk had all failed. But where was the harm in trying? You’d even boosted the odds in your favor a bit with a covert addition to your batch of cookies, just in case. Yes it was a longshot, but you hadn’t realized how heavily your hopes had been riding on it until the cookies had vanished. It felt like much more than twelve hours down the drain.

“You use less sugar because the wait makes them sweeter,” Nana always said.

The two of you had spent the day making a bulk batch of them yesterday. Nana had walked you through each painstaking step of the twelve hour process, watching you sharply like a karate instructor as you tried to perfectly mimic her every move. She was passing down her art, her Great-Aunt Silvie’s art, and she took that very seriously.

When Nana invited you over, she said she was impressed with your work as a private chef and the woman you’d become. Said she was proud of you for leaving that awful old job behind and moving forward. You didn’t point out that leaving ‘that awful old job’ hadn’t been a choice and you didn’t dwell on it, either. You were so pleased she was proud of you; the only bitterness on a day like that should be dark chocolate.

… And then you lost the recipe within an hour of receiving it. It was nowhere to be found. You’d been tearing the apartment apart all morning, but the only thing you found was the crummy phone number that hot weirdo had given you the night before.

The weirdo.

If that coked-out Cupid existed at all, then he was the one who had spirited your cookies away into the night. Your cookies, your fancy glass container, and… the recipe cards you’d tucked under the wax paper inside the container. Not in your pocket or your bag like a sane person would have done, but in the pyrex dish where they would stay safe and flat.

The contact card leered up at you tauntingly. You didn’t even remember pocketing it, but it had been tucked into your jeans pocket when you picked them up from the floor this morning. You had a staring contest with the piece of paper on your bed. It won.

All you had to go on was the phone number, and no one was picking up. The voicemail box was full and you didn’t bother to text. As a rule, you avoided pulling strings from your previous job, but desperate times called for desperate measures. With every moment that passed, it became more and more likely that somewhere in Manhattan, your precious heirloom had just been dumped into a trashcan. All you needed was access to the cell tracking tech.

You unlocked your phone and dialed. “Dorsey here. Sorry to call out of the blue. I have a favor to ask.”

“Shoot,” said Hill.

At first you thought it had to be a system malfunction. Something wrong with the input. You needed to know the location of the cell phone, not the corporate headquarters of its manufacturer. It had to be a mistake, because why the hell would a crazy dye job be in Avengers Tower? Maybe they had him in custody after he creeped out one girl too many …or maybe he was one of the many insane people Tony Stark employed (let it be known here that Tony Stark is self-employed).

Come to think of it, this shouldn’t have been a surprise. Most of the people you’d met in Avengers Tower over the years were crazy dye jobs—loveable ones, but still. What was one more? For being so big, New York was way too small. In any case, the location would make your mission a lot easier.

Easier aside from the fact that you had to schlep all the way to Midtown, via pricey Uber and not MTA since time was of the essence. You did the math in your head, trying to figure out how big of a dent this whole stupid cookie fiasco would put in your savings. How many weeks it might push back your still distant goal of moving out from the apartment you and your mother shared. Private chefs could bring in good money, but so could sleep disorder specialists. It broke even more often than you would have liked. Your sigh fogged up the cold glass of the cab window. Somehow you’d make it work.

It was unexpectedly nerve-wracking, standing in front of the revolving doors of Tony’s building. You hadn’t been inside Avengers Tower in over two years. The lobby was different—new marble—but the doorman at the desk was the same. It was a relief that ‘Beatrice Dorsey’ was still on his list, though you no longer worked or lived here. The doorman escorted you up to the tippy top of the tower, catching you up on the wife and kids during the elevator ride.

“It’s good to have you back, Ms. Dorsey,” he said in parting as you stepped off the elevator alone.

“Thanks, Bill,” you grinned. You didn’t say it was good to be back. You weren’t sure yet.

“Dorsey? Dorsey, is that you?”

A smile broke over your face as you entered the kitchen. “Bruce!” You were enveloped in a firm hug. “Wasn’t sure if you’d be here today.”

“The elusive Agent Dorsey returns,” he said with one of his lopsided grins. “What are you doing here? You just visiting?”

“It’s actually kind of a weird story. Speaking of weird, what are you doing here? It’s daylight hours, aren’t you normally locked up in the lab?”

Bruce pulled a face. “Tony’s being a problem child today. I thought I’d… give him space.”

“What’s going on with him? He wouldn’t respond to my texts.”

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose with the look of a longsuffering elder. “Yeah he’s having phone troubles. Problems in general with, uh, some new personnel.”

You laughed softly, careful not to aggravate the headache your sleeping pill hangover had gifted you. “Well there’s something new and different. Have they got anyone sane for you to play with?” When your time with S.H.I.E.L.D. had come to a close, you felt bad leaving Bruce here; it so often felt that you two were an island of reason amidst a crashing ocean of overdramatic crazy.

He snorted. “No. Well, actually,” he amended, “there’s Vision. You’ll like him if you meet him. Though I guess he’s proof that if you want sane company up here, you have to make it yourself.”

You’d heard about the Vision and the aftermath of the Ultron debacle, but knew very few of the details. Still, you knew enough to hope Vision would be around for you to meet in person. It was so strange to think that you would never speak to JARVIS again. You’d been friends.

“And his girlfriend’s usually pretty reasonable, too, now that she’s not trying to kill us.”

“He has a villain girlfriend? Already? They grow up so fast.”

Bruce raised his brows like he was just as amused as you were. “What, you didn’t know about her? Maximoff?”

“I’m not exactly reading Avengers tabloids.” You fiddled with your bag strap awkwardly. “I kind of avoid that sort of news. It’s, um. Hard to read about that stuff. Since leaving the job.” It was difficult to feel like your current work was meaningful when you held it up against past employment. You were making dinner rolls, not saving lives and protecting the free world.

“I guess I can understand that. Think I speak for the group when I say we miss seeing you around, though. Or just hearing from you.”

You bit your cheek. It might not have been your most mature move, but after your life came crashing down two years ago, putting as much space between you and your old life had helped you cope. You had unanswered texts on your phone that could have been featured on Antiques Roadshow.

When you said nothing, Bruce coughed. “But I know it’s hard for you. So you never said what it was that brings you here. You look exhausted. Anything I can help with?”

“Maybe.” You glanced around. It didn’t look like Tony would be any help. “I tracked a cellphone to this building, but the guy I’m looking for could be on any floor. I thought Tony might be able to help me go through the residents and visitors dossier, but he isn’t picking up either.”

Bruce’s eyebrows go up. “Well you’re certainly bolder than the last time I saw you. Hell of a way to get a date.” You smacked his shoulder, but indulged his teasing.

“I’m trying to track down something I lost last night.”

“Your heart?” Bruce’s eyes twinkled with mirth, the dork. You were used to being teased at every turn by the team. Hell, that had practically been your main job. You… you missed it.

You eyed Bruce appraisingly. “You’re in a good mood today.” This was practically chipper for Dr. Banner. Like the usual two-ton weight of self-loathing and restraint had been lifted off of him.

He shrugged and polished off the glass of milk he had sitting on the island counter.

Milk. Wait a minute. You sniffed the air in front of his face and narrowed your eyes. With the utmost gravity, feeling like a pet owner, you demanded, “What have you been eating?”

Before Bruce could answer, footsteps echoed into the living room. You looked over and when he came around the corner, you were so shocked that you didn’t even manage to say anything. You just dropped your jaw and pointed.

The guy with the white hair—apparently not a hallucination—stopped short and looked over his shoulder as though you must have been indicating someone else. He slowly pointed a finger at his own chest and quirked a single dark brow at you.

“What? You don’t remember me?” you sassed him. You were typically more reserved with people you didn’t know, but your head was giving you hell for taking sleeping pills and you had to go all the way to Midtown today because of this asshole. Midtown.

His blue eyes lit up from the entranceway. Why did he have to be so handsome? “Ah, so we met last night and you have come to see me.”

In a blink, he was suddenly lounging comfortably with one hip against the island counter and a cocky grin spread across his face. So it was true that he was Enhanced and not just one of your insomnia-bred hallucinations. Interesting. But that wouldn’t save him from you if he’d lost your family heirloom on his bender last night. Up close, you could see that his eyes were still slightly bloodshot, but the perfectly imperfect sprawl of an errant tuft of blonde hair sweeping across his brow more than made up for it. This strange man’s presence was haphazard but artful and he damn well knew it.

You puckered your mouth like you were sucking a lemon.

“Wait, Dorsey,” Bruce was incredulous. “This is the guy you’re looking for? Maximoff?”

“How do you know the doctor?” the silver-haired guy frowned. His accent was much slighter now that he was sober, his English more practiced.

You answered Bruce instead of indulging the thief’s curiosity. “Yeah, he stole something of mine and I need it back.”

Bruce was outright laughing at him now, holding the bridge of his glasses. “I know you’ve got sticky hands, Maximoff, but you stole from Dorsey? Of all people, sweet little Dorsey? What the hell did you steal? Did you rob some grannies too?”

“I did not!” Maximoff squirmed, flustered. “I did not do any of it!” Was he lying or did he genuinely not remember?

“I don’t get it, Dorsey. Why didn’t you knock the punk out?”

You flushed, somewhat ashamed of that yourself. “I was too tired to be aware of what was going on. By the time I caught on, he was long gone.” You tipped your head in the Enhanced guy’s direction. “I’m guessing he’s new.”

“Eh,” Bruce hedged. “It’s been, what? Six months, Pietro?”

“She could not knock me out,” Pietro protested, offended, before hastily adding, “And she would not need to! I stole nothing!”

“You did what?” An unfamiliar girl came onto the scene. Her accent and personal style pegged her as a fellow Eastern European.

“No-thing,” Pietro pronounced emphatically, baring his teeth. He started whining at the girl in his native language, using dramatic hand gestures almost too quickly to be perceived.

“Wanda,” Bruce muttered to you. “His sister.” His longsuffering sister, by the sound of it.

“Piet, we talked about the stealing!” Wanda cried with the betrayed disapproval of a dog owner.

“I robbed no one!”

“You stole my recipe card!” you rebutted, too addled for delicacy. Your head was pounding from the sleeping pill hangover and you just wanted to get this over with and go home.

“Why on earth would I do that?!”

“You tell me!” you exploded.

“Piet,” Wanda said. “There is no need for yelling. What did you do?”

His sister’s disapproval in particular seemed to set him off. “Will no one see I am innocent? What would I want with a recipe? And the tiny girl has no proof! I have never met her before! How do we even know that it was me?”

You slapped the card with his number onto the kitchen counter with a satisfying ‘smack!’ You’d been fiddling with it in your pocket for a while now, waiting for the right moment.

Pietro was silent, but the ‘well, shit’ was eloquently communicated via body language.

“Look, I’m not pressing charges or anything, here. I just want my cookie recipe back.”

“Ahhh,” he said uncomfortably at the mention of cookies. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and avoided his sister’s eyes. “Cookies I do remember. When I wake up, they are next to me. Well, a few.”

“A few?” you echoed in disbelief. “There were three dozen. Where are the rest.”

“Wait, you’re talking about those cookies that you passed out last night,” Bruce cut in.

“I am?” Pietro frowned. “I did?” Yeah, you thought. This guy doesn’t remember anything from the night before.

Bruce gestured to the kitchen area behind him. “You came swooping in late in a cheap Cupid costume and handed them out like valentines. Figured it was someone’s Valentine’s Day gift for the team. But it was only me and Natasha up, so you only got rid of two. I don’t know about the rest. She tossed hers out, I saved mine for today. Sorry, Bea,” he tacked on.

“The rest…” Pietro rubbed his neck with discomfort. “I ate them… I think. Last night I don’t remember so good.”

“All of them?” you gasped. “Those were—” You paused to take a steadying breath. “How have you been feeling today?” You doubted he actually ate them all, considering he was stringing complete sentences together.

“Hungover?” Pietro shrugged, bloodshot eyes regarding you quizzically.

“You’re not feeling weird?” you persisted.

“Why would I—” Pietro’s eyes went wide with comprehension. “They are drug cookies. You are a drug dealer.”

Behind you, Bruce was having trouble breathing through his laughter. He kept casting his eyes about as if he wished Clint or Natasha were here to witness this. Obviously, he was very entertained by Pietro’s absurd idea that strait-laced Bea Dorsey had been smuggling weed across Manhattan.

And the idea was absurd. But it also happened to be true. The irony was, if your theory about Bruce’s laid back mood this afternoon was correct (i.e. that it was because he’d eaten a cookie himself), the real reason Bruce was laughing uncontrollably was not because Pietro was wrong but because he was right.

“N-no,” you stammered. “No, it’s a just a family—Do you have the recipe or not? It was at the bottom of the container, under the wax paper.” You wondered how Pietro could be so unaffected. He was acting strangely, but not like he’d ingested thirty-plus weed cookies in a single sitting.

But Pietro was too busy crowing in vindicated rapture to bother with your question. “Aha! You are all thinking I am a dirty thief, but she is a drug dealer!”

“So it’s okay to steal if it’s from other criminals?” you squinted, sidetracked by his smudged logic.

Pietro tilted his chin down to squint right back at you with his face inches away, arms folded self-righteously over his chest. “So you admit you are a criminal?”

Irritated breath seethed through your clenched teeth. “Look, just. Show me the damn tupperware!”

“Right this way, Tiny Montana.”

“It’s Tony Montana,” you sneered, sullen.

“I know what I said.” He started off down the hall, thankfully at a human speed, presumably to his room.

You trailed behind him, wincing as the change in lighting messed with your headache. “So you’re not even going to apologize, huh?”

He bristled, but you couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed or just generally stubborn. “You don’t heff to be so uptight. It’s only cookies.”

“They’re special. They’re like a delicacy. I don’t expect you to understand, but it’s one of those special family tradition recipe things.”

His face was closed off but he tipped his head in acknowledgment. “I admit, the four I had when I woke up were… quite good.”

“You ate four just today?” you balked at him without thinking. “How are you functioning?”

Pietro quirked a dark eyebrow at you, amused. “You admit they are laced?”

“I admit nothing,” you snapped. “And they couldn’t have been laced, since you’re obviously unaffected.” It was a convenient defense, so convenient you were starting to worry that the lie was true. Maybe you’d put regular butter in the mixing bowl instead of the pricey cannabutter you’d brought to Nana’s. Or worse, maybe you’d packed the wrong batch of cookies to take with you. An alarmed look twisted your face as a scene from Grandma’s Boy danced mockingly behind your eyelids.

“I have a fast metabolism. Lucky for you, I am not easily intoxicated.”

“Yeah? Then how come you don’t remember last night? Heck, you were already half out of your mind when we ran into each other!”

Pietro sniffed somewhat defensively. “My metabolism works quickly on human substances. I had not until last night tested liquor for the gods.”

“Wait, you went drinking with Thor?” That explained everything. “Well that was a good idea.”

He scowled bitterly at the sarcasm. If your brief time in the building today was any indication, this guy already got his fair share of lectures on a daily basis. “How do you know the Avengers?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” you deflected, unwilling to let your mugger drag you back into the past.

“Personally. How do you know the Avengers personally?”

“I used to work here,” was all you said.

He snorted like you’d made a good joke, but quieted down when you took the left at the end of the hallway without prompting, heading to the side of the building where his quarters most likely were.

“Here,” he said when you reached his room.

You noted the unethical number of sneakers littering the floor, but you only had eyes for your glass container. There! On the bed! You rushed to it and swept it into grateful arms, cradling it like a baby.

“Not a crumb left,” you muttered when you looked inside, melancholy but resigned. An empty container of cookies was a familiar sight to anyone in your family. You sighed. The cookies wouldn’t have worked anyways. You weren’t big on drugs—in fact you were basically as strait-laced as Bruce assumed—but you’d already tried smoking before bed once as a sleep aid on a friend’s recommendation and it hadn’t made a lick of difference or helped at all. The truth was that you had been desperate for a miracle and held out hope that combining THC with the most comforting and special family treat would somehow magically cure your insomnia.

“I’m sure they weren’t cheap for you to make,” Pietro commented, still trying to get you to confess that they weren’t regular desserts.

Lifting the wax paper, you breathed a sigh of relief at the welcome sight of aged brown cardstock and old-fashioned cursive underneath it. “Forget the cookies. This is what I’m really after.”

The pent-up anxiety that the heirloom could be lost forever left you all at once in a gust, leaving you deflated and slightly dizzy. It was disorienting to be in this strange social situation in the midst of a sleeping pill hangover. It was disorienting to be back in Tony’s tower again at all. Your relief at completing your search and rescue mission was potent, almost painful, and it left you unsteady on your feet in its wake. Pietro was staring, you noticed, as you swayed slightly. What were you supposed to be doing now?

“I uh,” you pressed two fingers to you temple to focus. “I need to get my bag from the kitchen.” You left.

Bruce had wandered off by the time you returned to the living area, but Wanda was still there on one of the sofas. She eyed you as you crossed to where your bag sat. You were dizzy and ready to be home.

“You should have a glass of water. Sit before you leave,” Wanda suggested in a flat tone that gave away nothing.

You frowned at the unsolicited advice, but it actually sounded like a really good idea. You nodded and got the water yourself and sat at the kitchen island. The card with Pietro’s number still lay on the table. The one he’d slipped into your back pocket (jeez, buy a girl a drink first) as quick as blinking. Was his sister Enhanced too, you wondered? She said nothing else. The water was cool and the quiet wasn’t bad either.

You didn’t see Pietro reenter the room, but one moment he was gone and the next he was leaning on the back of one of the sofas carrying on a quiet conversation with Wanda in Sokovian. Your water was finished. Your recipe card was recovered. It was time for you to go back.

After getting as far as shouldering your bag, your exit was interrupted.

“Sleepy?!” Tony and Natasha strolled in shoulder to shoulder. It was gratifying how surprised and happy Tony looked to see you. You were a relatively quiet coworker and housemate, you’d never been sure whether Tony had any particular affection for you. Besides saving your life several times over, but that could be said of most of the Avengers.

“Tony!” In retrospect, it was lucky he was even in town. You figured he would’ve been in Malibu this time of year.

“Wait, wait, time out,” Tony said, eyeing the slip of paper Pietro had handed you the night before. “You’re one of the girls Eurotrash here gave his number to last night? Sleepy, don’t tell me you took up stripping.”

“‘One of the girls?’” you echoed. “How many did he go through?”

Pietro scowled, likely not appreciating being spoken about like wasn’t in the room. “Enough,” was all he said.

“Well over a hundred,” Tony said drily.

A hundred?! Not only were you out $50 worth of cannabutter cookies and a day’s worth of work, but you weren’t even special. “Did no one give you the superhero memo? Aren’t you supposed to being making the streets safer instead of terrorizing them?”

“Believe it or not, there are in fact women in this city who enjoy the company of a charming, handsome man.” With superhuman speed, he whipped out his phone and displayed the neverending scroll of inbound texts. “If I am terrorizing, why do I have fifty dates in my calendar?”

“Pietro, I swear,” Wanda exclaimed with exasperation. “I’m not helping you cancel those. Remember our deal—I don’t help with your breakups anymore.”

“Why would I cancel?”

Wanda just scoffed like her brother wasn’t worth arguing with in such a mood.

Tony blinked slowly, unentertained by sibling drama. “Am I the only one concerned that Sleepy hasn’t answered my question about stripping?”

You rolled your eyes. “I’ll have you know that I became a private chef. The kind that keeps her clothes on,” you specified.

Natasha groaned wistfully. “You still bake? I miss your sharlotka every day.”

Tony’s eyebrows engaged Business Mode. “Who are you working for? What are they paying you?”

You suspected Tony had said these exact words many times in his life. Maybe not about cooking, though. “It’s just for a few families in the Village. I go in once or twice a week, make enough for them to reheat. Nothing too fancy.”

“Do you still make that brown butter curried lobster?” Tony asked intently.

When you were here last, you had not been employed as a chef, but you had lived and cooked here. In the slow weeks between global disasters and covert ops assignments, you’d occupied your time perfecting over the top recipes and sharing with your teammates as a way to decompress. It had evolved into an expected ritual over time, but it had been a role you’d enjoyed. As someone who was not exactly a real Avenger nor exactly support staff, you’d been drawn to that feeling of being needed and appreciated by the team. Your brown butter lobster pasta had been an especially big hit.

“... Well, yes.”

Behind you, Natasha tossed Tony a desperate look. It was as close to ‘please please can we keep the puppy?’ as Natasha Romanoff’s face could get.

“Pff, ‘nothing too fancy,’ my ass, Sleepy. I can’t believe you never told me you were cooking for a living!” Tony complained.

You leveled him a flat look for a long moment.

He eventually picked up on his error and corrected himself in an identical tone. “I can’t believe I never remembered that you told me you were cooking for a living!”

There it is, you thought. Though of course it didn’t surprise you that Tony hadn’t retained the details of your personal life you shared in a Christmas card literally two whole years ago. You didn’t take it personally; you already knew JARVIS had been the only one who read Christmas cards delivered here.

“Okay, it’s decided,” Tony concluded with a clap.

Wait, what. “What is?” you asked. Tony didn’t answer and the Maximoffs looked as out of the loop as you were.

Natasha was pumping her fist with a quiet “Yesss.”

“Good work, team,” said Clint, and when the hell did Clint even get here? He saluted you from his secluded spot atop some railing on the second level and dissolved back into the shadows.

“What’s decided?”

Tony fiddled with his goatee behind his desk as you mulled over this deal with the devil. You’d done your protesting, but he could tell you were really considering it now. The salary he was offering you was absurd. You’d have enough to move out of your mother’s home in no time. You might even be able to afford one of those experimental treatments or see some specialists abroad. Not to mention that S.H.I.E.L.D. had access to some extremely niche researchers on the Enhanced. It was tempting. You wouldn’t be buying cannabutter from a friend of a friend and sneaking it into your grandmother’s kitchen if you weren’t desperate for solutions.

Still, there was no way your mother would approve. She and Nana were so happy to see you out of your old job. Technically, you wouldn’t be going back. You’d be doing the same job you were working now with similar but exclusive hours, private cheffing several days a week. Just in a different building. Your mother wouldn’t see it that way. But it didn’t have to be forever. Just long enough to pad your savings and talk to some specialists. And that wouldn’t take long considering the salary Tony was offering. The salary almost made you feel like you were taking advantage, but in a way you were trying to get your life back on track from when S.H.I.E.L.D. itself had inadvertently derailed it. It evened out.

You shook Tony’s hand, steadfastly ignoring the unsurprised told-you-so lift in his brows behind his heavy-rimmed glasses. What did he have to be smug about when you were so clearly getting the better end of this deal?

“You aren’t as peppy as I remember,” he commented.

You gave him a grim smile reflexively, unsure whether it was apologetic. “It’s been a while.” A while since you’d had a natural good night’s sleep, since you’d last seen Tony, since you let your old life touch your new one.

Your mother wouldn’t have to know. Because technically you weren’t changing jobs anyways. Just picking up a new client. Or nine… or however many people lived here now. You made a note to self to ask Tony’s new AI about that as well as food allergies.

Walking toward the elevators, you heard voices from down the hall. Arguing. You didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it was difficult to ignore.

“You are too old to be acting this way, Piet! Twelve-year-olds are too old to be acting this way! Stumbling drunk around New York City! Getting into fights with perfectly nice girls!”

“She’s not nice,” Pietro mumbled petulantly. “Too uptight.”

“Stark seems to like her,” Wanda argued.

“Strike two.” Apparently Pietro wasn’t Tony’s biggest fan.

Wanda changed the subject. “There are better ways to deal with your problems, Piet,” she insisted. “You feel lonely and out of place so you drink with Thor and try to sleep with every girl in the city. This solves nothing and you wake up regretting.”

“I’m not lonely!” Pietro scoffed, insulted.

“Why else would you do this? It’s not as though you actually plan to date fifty women, or however many it was.”

“Maybe I do,” Pietro snapped. You could hear the lie in his voice as clearly as you could hear his growing resolve to prove his sister wrong at all costs. “You don’t know everything, Wanda.”

She didn’t even dignify his last accusation with a response. All she would say was, “Be an adult and cancel those dates.”

“I am an adult and you don’t make these decisions for me. I have no regrets. Just because you’re in a relationship doesn’t make you expert on what is best for other people. Besides, I’m older.” The rest of their argument trailed off into what sounded like a well-worn fight they often had between themselves.

You left them be and pressed the call button for the elevator. You had things to do. Menus to plan, you thought with an excited wiggle in your fingers.

Besides, Pietro’s ridiculous dates were going to be his problem, not yours. Or so you thought.