Tony had arrived back at Stark Tower late the night before. He had no idea how far or fast they'd travelled to return to earth, and had been much too tired to ask. Arriving back at Stark Tower, Pepper had hurried him off to their suite for a shower, food and bed before he could start another civil war, which at the time Tony thought was an overreaction, but upon reflection, was very bright on her behalf, as he had felt a lot like punching Cap right in his caring, concerned face.

Now that he was home and the sun was shining on New York City, Tony would see that it was all just a bad dream. Pepper was up before him as usual. She showered and went to the kitchen. The room smelt of her perfume, the bed was warm and comfortable, and there would be no gods, wizards, racoons, aliens, spies, unknown lawyers, nurses, children, or anyone else in his house. After a decent lie-in, Tony turned up the volume to AC-DC while he dressed and shaved, then went to get himself a very, very large cup of coffee.

"Oh," Tony said, as he entered the dining room, realising that the nightmare was most likely actually true. He swallowed back the thought of having to call May Parker. All of his houseguests were seated around the table, with an additional unknown teenager sitting at the far end. "Oh, goodie. Let's add her to the 'who is that and why are they in my house?' list."

"Tony," Steve said, "This is Shuri, Princess Regent of Wakanda."

"T'Challa's sister," Natasha said.

"And she's amazingly smart, Tone," Bruce said. "Once we eat, she can help us out with Vis and…"

"Ok, cool," Tony said. "Someone refresh me. Who's who here?"

"I'm Pepper and I'm your fiancé," Pepper smirked.

"Uh huh, hilarious, Pep," Tony said, sliding into the seat at the opposite end of the table to the new girl. "Fine, you're up. Who's who."

"Mr Wong, who's some sort of wizard."

"Yeah, we've met," Tony said.

"Good morning, Mr Stark."

"Hey, Wong."

"Lady Sif and Valkyrie, Asgardians," Pepper continued, "Korg, rock-man. Thor, Asgardian. Nebula - "

"She's my end-of-the-world-buddy."

"Ok, great. Rocket, err, racoon. Princess Shuri of Wakanda, who arrived a couple of hours ago, Cap, Nat, Clint, Clint's daughter Lila, Claire, who's Matt's friend, Matt, who's Natasha's friend, Bruce and Rhodey."

"Yeah, ok, let's cancel this remark of The Brady Bunch, can we?"

"I understand that reference," Steve said.

"Reference to what?" Shuri asked.

"Sorry, you're what what? 14?" Tony said, looking at Shuri, "Did your mom sign a form to let you come on excursion here?"

"I am 18," Shuri said, "And if it makes you more comfortable, yes, my mother did grant me permission to leave the country and come to assist Captain Rogers and his friends is their attempt to right this insanity. I promised her that if I can bring back T'Challa and Nakia, then she is almost guaranteed a wedding and grandchildren. My apologies, but you are…?"

Tony looked around to check no one else had entered the room, when he realised that Shuri was talking to him. "Tony Stark. This is my house."

"I thought this is her house," Shuri said, pointing to Pepper.

"Stark Tower. Tony Stark. My house."

"12 per cent?" Pepper whispered in Tony's ear, and slipping a mug of coffee into his hands.

"We're gunna need a pre-nup," Tony muttered. "Ok then, Princess - "

"Your Royal Highness."

"Pardon?"

"You may call me Shuri, but if you wish to use forms of address, as your Asgardian friends do, then it is Your Royal Highness the first time, after that, 'ma'am' will suffice."

Tony took a deep breath. "So what brings you to New York, Shuri?"

"Your intelligent giant meerkat."

Rocket looked around. "Is that good? Is that a good thing?"

"It's a good thing," Steve said.

Rocket beamed. "I like her."

"The things he stole - "

"Uh-oh…"

" - Show great knowledge of technology, especially as he was able to manipulate them into such a device as to contact the friends of King Thor. I have a brought him a gift."

"Really?" Steve said.

"Really?" Rocket asked.

"That," Shuri said, pointing outside to the solo plane she had arrived in.

"That?" Nebula said.

"That?" Rocket beamed.

Shuri looked straight at Rocket. "Can you use that to make the Avengers jet space-worthy?"

"With pirate angel and rock-man to do the heavy lifting, I will make something while you Terrans digest that diluted waste-water you call coffee."

"Excellent," said Shuri. "In the mean-time, I would like to see the Vision. I have some ideas as to how to repair him. From my understanding of his capabilities, I believe we will need him."

"Of course," said Bruce.

"What happened to this being my house?" Tony asked.

"12 per cent of your house," Pepper said, taking a sip of coffee. Tony glared at her. Pepper chuckled.

"Very good," Shuri said, ignoring Tony, "Then I would like to try."

…

"We're both just putting on brave faces, right?" Natasha asked, her hands stuffed deep into her pockets as she slipped into his room after breakfast. "Brave faces? Because if you're really this in control, then damn, Steve…"

Steve exhaled. "I'm Captain America. I think there's a law against me freaking out," he said, though his face told Natasha everything she needed to know. Steve was terrified. He had no idea what he was doing. "You should be a professional poker player."

"Ha," Natasha said, sitting down on the bed and folding her arms. "Clint's lost most of his family, and it's all he can do not to break down in front of Lila. Bruce is tied up in Tony's lab, working so he doesn't have to feel anything. I guess that's why Shuri's headed down there too. Matt, I - Matt's mind is somewhere else and he won't open up. He's avoiding me. Maybe it's been too long. Maybe it's all just too much. I can't talk to any of them. And everyone else…"

"You can't tell anyone what's really going on inside," Steve said.

Natasha nodded.

Steve sat down beside her and leant forward, resting his elbows on his thighs and his head on his hands. "I can't keep losing Bucky," he said quietly. "I can't stop seeing him just - vanish. Off the train, off the helicarrier, just - into thin air… I can't keep losing him."

Natasha shuffled across, linked her arm around Steve's and leant into him. "We can't lose like this." She stared out the window at the quiet, half-empty city, where once they'd fought aliens on the streets and in the air. Now they had the Tower full of amazing people, both with and without super powers. But they were directionless, full of factions and splintering further with every new arrival. They needed something to pull them all together. "Coulson's idea," Natasha mumbled, and looked up at Steve.

Steve raised his eyebrows.

Natasha allowed herself a small smile. "See if we can fight the battles that no one else can."

"You reckon…"

"We've got about four engineers including one racoon, three gods, a handful of super-soldiers, a wizard, a nurse, a robot-alien, a dude made of rocks, Pepper Potts, and some magic weapons. Everyone's pissed and everyone's got too little too lose, and way too much to gain."

Steve looked out the window. "I guess you want me to call a meeting."

"Everyone's looking to you, Steve."

"They weren't looking to me at breakfast."

Natasha shrugged. "They needed food and coffee. I needed food and coffee. And Tony needed to be Tony. Also that is one massive dining table."

Steve chuckled and sighed. "I know. I just - I wish…"

"You don't have to be Captain America with me," Natasha said, "And - I can't be Black Widow with you. When it's just us, we gotta be Steve and Natasha. We gotta be honest sometime. I mean, there's only so many times you can walk in on someone in the bathroom and not just be on permanent first-name terms."

"Look," Steve laughed, "We spent a lot of time living in very close quarters. It was only twice. Once I thought you were Sam - "

"Doesn't make it any better…"

"And the other time I didn't realise you were still in there."

Natasha laughed, "Uh huh, sure you didn't, Cap."

"It's like walking in on my sister," Steve said, "And I don't even have a sister!"

Natasha smiled and sighed. "We'll get our brother back. And Bucky, too. All of us. Everyone."

Steve nodded. "I'm still freaking out though."

"Oh," Natasha said, "Absolutely. I think we're only in real trouble when we stop."

…

"Bruce! Tony!" Shuri called, stepping back from the screen and holding her hands up, "Something is happening and I do not think it is me."

"What's not you?" Bruce asked, coming to look at the screens.

"That is not me doing that," Shuri said, pointing to the screens. "I don't think. Did you do something?"

Bruce's eyes went wide. "Umm, something, yeah, but - what did you do?"

"Something?" Shuri said.

"Hey, Tone, come see this," Bruce said.

Tony came over and swore.

"What were you doing?" Shuri asked.

"I was - yeah. Not expecting that what I was doing to do that…"

"So which one of our things was it? Because maybe we should keep doing that," Bruce said.

"Ok," Shuri said. "Yeah, ok. So this is good?"

"I think?" Bruce said.

"It's definitely not worse," Tony said.

"Ok. Good, yeah ok. Let's call this good and keep doing what we were doing."

"Ok."

"Ok. Good."

"Good. Yeah."

They stood in front of the screens for a few more moments as it filled with a ongoing string of code:

/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/*Wanda*/

…

Everyone again gathered at the dining table for lunch. Pepper had made a quiet comment to Steve about how they were fast running out of food with this number of people in the house, but she could hopefully keep them fed for a couple more days. Lunch was three very large trays of pasta-bake, all of which had been devoured. Though almost everyone had work to return to, no one moved.

"Ok," Tony said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms, "Clearly it's pep-talk time. Cap is all but bursting; 'So, you got your asses handed to you by a giant purple turd'."

Lila chuckled. Lady Sif had braided her hair, and she'd been following the Asgardian women around all morning, after having declared to Clint that she too would be a real-life warrior princess when she grew up. Clint couldn't find any objections.

Steve shook his head, then looked up and down the table, caught Natasha's eye, and found himself smiling. "There was an idea," he began.

Tony looked at him. "No. Nope, you are not doing this. We are not getting sentimental."

"Don't knock sentiment until you've tried it," Steve said. Natasha winked. Steve continued. "And idea called the Avengers Initiative."

"To bring together a group of remarkable people, to see if they could become something more," Natasha continued.

Tony rolled his eyes. "See if they could work together when we needed them to to fight the battles the universe never could."

"Well?" said Steve.

"Still sounds like one hell of an idea to me," Clint said, folding his arms and for the first time in days, allowing himself to feel hopeful. For Lila, who looked at him and grinned. For his family. For the team.

"Agreed with the archer," said Thor, "And I like to believe I speak for my people. There's too much to gain." Lady Sif, Valkyrie and Korg, as well as Nebula and Rocket, nodded.

"You have my support," Shuri said.

"And me," said Wong, "I've some ideas."

"Me too," Claire said. "Not ideas as such, but you lot are likely to get beat up. Can't hurt to have a medic on the sidelines."

Matt sighed, "Ok. Yeah, I - guess I'm gunna have to show you what I can do."

Natasha smiled, and caught Claire's eye, and knew that Claire knew about Matt too.

"This was Greg's idea, right?" said Pepper. "Back in the day? Then yeah, definitely."

"Same here," said Rhodes.

"I'm in," said Bruce, and smiled as he looked around the table, "Our support team might not be SHIELD, but they're sure something."

"They're spectacular," Natasha said, "I'm in all the way. Always, Steve."

"I hate you all," Tony said. "Yes. Fine. I'm in. Say the magic words, Cap."

Steve grinned. They would fix this. They would get everyone back. This was not the end. "Avengers Assemble."

A/N: And cue music! And that's where I end this. I couldn't leave the Steve and crew all alone in that glade in Wakanda, and had to get the gang back together. Originally this was just going to be a little Steve and Nat Hurt/Comfort thing, but it grew and grew, but ends here. Those 3,000 words I threw down after coming out of the cinema grew into the 14,000 you see here. Hopefully this will tide everyone over until Avengers 4! Thank-you so much for all the support, it has been fantastic. I really appreciate every comment, follow and favourite. Thanks again for reading :D