Okay this is another Avenger's fic that has been cluttering my mind, takes place 2yrs after the Avenger's split. I hope that I'm able to write it out alright since I'm currently sick again. Also I wanted to give a shout out to someone who was kind enought o help me and my husband despite the tragic loss of one of her own.

Sesshykagslvr- your donation was very helpful and we appreciate it very much, thank you. Also to everyone else out there, please send your sympathies and well wishes to Sesshy and her family for the loss of her baby nephew last thursady.

For those of you who also want to lend a helping hand, here is the link.

pb53bv-nearly-homeless

The top pic on the page is of my husband and his mom on our wedding day in 2010. And the final pic was taken while he was still in Siskin, after he got his hair cut.

Okay- so on to the story!

It was two years and three months after the Avengers had split- when the burner phone that Steve had sent to Tony in the same package as his shield, was first used. It had been a nice day in Wakanda, Bucky had been successfully deprogramed. And was now more like his old former self than Steve had seen him be in a long, long time.

Bucky was with Steve when he got Tony's nearly hysterical/frantic call consisting of a little more than cursing and a 'hi how are you'. In fact most of what Tony blabbed about on the phone, in Steve's ear sounded a lot like word vomit. Really distressed, really rushed, damned near hysterical babbling, word vomit.

As far as Steve knew only one person in the world, aside from Bruce, would ever call him sounding this distressed. And that would be Tony. Though why the man had decided to call him now after two long goddamned years, was beyond him. But despite how things had turned out between him it wasn't as if he hated the man enough to actually hang up on him.

Word vomit or not. Friends were friends.

So he sat down someplace comfy and simply listened to Tony's rushed babbling.

Apparently his friend was on his way to the hospital, someone was injured, someone else was dead, he and Pepper had broken up, and he was thinking about adopting someone else's kid. Steve frowned as he listened to the man babble before he took a deep breath and sobbed in Steve's ear that he wished he and the others would just come home.

And he knew that Steve would never leave Bucky so he should bring him along. No tricks. Nothing. He had had the past two years to look deep inside of himself and realize that Steve had been right about Bucky and the fact that he hadn't been himself when he had murdered his parents.

Steve wasn't exactly sure what to think once he heard this. The man was kind of relieved that it had taken Tony this long to admit that he was wrong and ask him to come back home, and be on the team again. And bring Bucky with him.

And then right before Tony hung up, he said as calmly- well as calmly and someone near hysteria could muster, anyways, "Besides, I need you and your bestie to be here to play godfather's to my kid since Bruce outright refused on the grounds of the kid sometimes annoys him and he doesn't want an actual reason to smash her."

Once the line went dead and Steve had a moment to process everything that Tony had said, he looked down at his phone for a moment and then looked up at Bucky whom had apparently come looking for him sometime while he had been distracted and seated himself next to him to listen in out of curiosity.

His expression bewildered as he asked, "Did you hear-"

"Yeah." Bucky replied in a gentle tone. His expression unusually somber.

Swallowing past the sudden lump in his throat, Bucky asked him what he wanted to do. Making Steve frown as he mulled everything over for several seconds before deciding to call Bruce and Pepper and see what was going on with Tony.

He had a long talk with both.

And it was decided that once he spoke to the others, then he and whoever else was up to it- would all return home.

New York-

Tony had been sitting in the waiting room outside of the ER with Vision, Rhodey, Pepper and Happy for the past four hours awaiting any news of May Parker and her niece. The kid. Or more accurately put, his kid.

The two had been out late this evening to celebrate his kid's sixteenth birthday when they were blindsided by a drunk driver just a half block from their home. The vehicle that had hit them, hit them with enough force to flip their car several times before it slammed into a telephone poll and snapped it in half before finally coming to a complete stop.

The kid had suffered non life threatening injuries to her eyes, a head wound from attempting to prevent injury to May, several bruised ribs, and a fractured wrist.

May however wasn't quite so lucky. When Tony had got the alert from the kid's phone, he had dropped everything he'd been working on and been there in under three minutes. But when he had gotten there, May hadn't been breathing and it was almost twenty minutes before the paramedics had reached the accident and pulled the two to safety.

He had been allowed to take the kid ahead only because her injuries were non life threatening. However the sight of May staring lifelessly at him while the medics had attempted to bring her back, was just a bit too much for him.

Scrubbing his face with his hands, he then dropped them and then let his head fall forward as he heaved a tired sigh.

The moment that he had gotten the kid to the local hospital, some of the doctors form the ER had met him at the door. Ready to take the kid from him.

And from what little bit he had overheard as they were taking her back, she'd not only suffered a nasty gnash along her skull, but some glass had gotten into her eyes and damaged them. And not more than ten minutes after he had brought in the kid, May was brought in.

They had still been trying to resuscitate her.

But they had finally given in and called the time of death a little over two hours ago.

Which had caused him to panic and call Pepper and Happy and tell them to grab the emergency adoption papers that he'd spoken to May about just in case the event of something happening to her occurred. May had thought it a little bit of a stretch to simply go from the kid being an intern to being his adopted daughter in the span of minutes.

But he had kindly pointed out that because of the kid's occupation as Spiderman- that horrible shit had a way of happening to good people.

He had even pointed out repeatedly that if any of the kids enemies ever found out her name and connection to May, they might just murder her to get to the kid.

It had taken some really, really stressful negotiations on his part. Honestly May had a kind of death grip on the kid that was simply mind boggling. And nothing short of telling her that he wasn't going to let the kid become an orphan again and get lost in the foster care system- had impressed upon the woman just how bad things could really get if anything ever happened to her.

So upon getting his call, Pepper and Happy had collected the papers (and Rhodey since he'd been present) and then come straight to the hospital where he had signed the adoption papers and then had Happy run them to the lawyer's office to be filed.

By the time he knew what was going on with the kid in the next hour/few hours, he'd be a dad.

Oh god he was a dad! For once in his life he didn't know what to do. He'd never imagined himself as the fatherly type. Hell for the most part he could barely stand kids. But for some reason he had an unnatural soft spot when it came to his kid. So much so that he'd given up sleeping around, drinking and his damnedable wild parties.

She was simply so innately good that it was hard to not to want to be a better person because of her. He knew that she looked up to him, and the moment that he had decided to talk to May about the emergency adoption papers- he had given up those things so that he could be the kind of man that was actually deserving of the kid's admiration.

He wanted to make her feel at home with him. Safe even.

He kept an eye on her and everything that she did. They worked together every week and he even had her spend the night with him a few times so that he could get a good feel for her taste in furniture, clothing, music, books, DVD's, ect.- and had created one of the many, many empty rooms in his home into a bedroom fit for a princess.

He'd even bought her aqua, light purple and pastel pink satin sheets for her bed on a funny little whim knowing that she'd freak out in that adorably comical way of hers, about them.

He'd planned and planned for well over a year, painstakingly selecting only the best of everything for her.

But he never would have imagined in a million years that he would be putting it to use so damned soon... He was already taking care of the details for May's funeral, Pepper had her tablet out and was randomly asking about what kind of coffin, flowers and so on May might have liked.

Every question felt like an actual physical blow to his body, making his heart ache and feel as if he'd had the breath knocked out of him. It was so unimaginably painful that he had to do this. Especially on the kid's behalf, but then she was still very young.

And had already experienced more than her fair share of tragedies in her short life.

Sensing rather than hearing one of the doctors as he approached, Tony tensed up and looked up- hoping to god that the man would walk by him and go tell some other person something about their family or friend. However that wasn't to be, the doctor came to a stand still right in front of him and removed the mask that he'd been wearing over his face as he said, "Mr. Stark, are you responsible for the Parker kid?"

Tony felt positively ancient as he replied that yes, he was now responsible for the kid. The doc merely nodded and began to tell him that his kid was okay, however, she was as of now- partially blind due to both the glass she'd had in her eyes as well as the fact that the head wound that she'd suffered had caused her optic nerves in both eyes to become damaged as well.

The doctor didn't know if it was permanent. At the moment he had only a vague idea of the kid's actual 'visional' condition. He mentioned that most people who suffered partial blindness usually suffered it in one of several ways. And she had only woken up briefly to mention that she couldn't really see. Only make out vague shapes and shadows.

Tony said nothing, despite how horrified he was.

Really what could he say, the kid had just lost her aunt, gained a new father, and was now blind... And there was nothing that he could do or say at the moment that would remotely be of help. So instead he merely nodded his head in acknowledgement of everything that he had been told while silently grieving for the many losses his girl had suffered this evening as he slowly began to plan accordingly.