"What are you doing?" Steve asked when he entered the bedroom Tony and Bucky were currently staying in.

The reaction was immediate. Tony made himself as small as he could, hiding some papers under him, while Bucky positioned himself to be in front of Tony, as if he wanted to shield him.

"You cannot tell him to stop," Bucky told him, voice incredibly determined for a six year old.

"I don't even know what you two are doing. Why would I tell Tony to stop?"

"Everyone always tells me to stop," Tony mumbled towards his paper and Bucky quickly spun around and plastered himself at Tony's side.

"They won't this time. I'll make sure of that," he told Tony, and Steve couldn't help but smile.

They had feared that the two little boys would be a handful, especially since Bucky hadn't been easy as a kid, but they took an immediate liking to each other and now Bucky saw himself as Tony's protector. And he took that role seriously, as Steve's shins had learned. So they were still a handful, but at least they were working together.

"I was just curious what you two were up to," Steve tried to reassure them but he was met with suspicious glares.

"We'll take over the world," Bucky stated eventually, like it was nothing and Steve wondered where they got their ideas from. Sure Tony was a genius, even at this young age, but what would he even want with the world.

"I think you are too young to have the world," Steve started and while Tony flinched, Bucky seethed with rage.

"Don't you tell us what we can have!" he yelled and Steve raised his hands in an apologetic manner.

"What would you even do with it, once you have it?" he asked them, really curious about that.

Tony still didn't answer him, but Bucky had no such reservations. "We're gonna take the world so that no one can hurt him no more," he told Steve with conviction and while Steve's heart broke a bit at that, he also had to suppress a smile. Once Bucky took a liking to someone, no one was allowed to hurt them anymore.

"That sounds like a really good plan," Steve agreed. "But don't you think you should start on a smaller scale? Test your plan out first?"

"What would you suggest?" Tony piped up without making eye contact with Steve and Bucky petted his head.

"Try and take over this tower. You know about the Avengers right? If you have those, no one will hurt you anymore."

"But where do we start? There are so many," Bucky said and Steve inwardly laughed. If they didn't know how to take over a team with currently five members, he wondered what they had planned to do to take over billions.

"I would start with Clint," Steve conspirationally told them. "He seems like a good place to start, being human and all."

That earned him two wide eyed stares. "You're not human?" Tony whispered eventually and Steve could already see the questions forming.

"Probably not entirely anymore. But if you want to know about that, you have to get Clint on your side first."

Tony seemed to mull that over but Bucky was already on fire. He pointed at various places on their papers and Tony nodded eagerly. Steve decided to let the two be and carefully edged back out of the room.

He briefly debated if he should warn Clint that two six year olds were about to invade his floor, but in the end he decided against that. After all, they wouldn't be in this mess if Clint could just keep his hands to himself and didn't feel the urge to press every button on every alien looking technology ever. He could very well deal with the fall out.