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Bruce Banner dropped his head into his hands, slumping further across the table, until his cheek was smushed on the cool glass of the tabletop. The big guy had really taken a toll on him today. The kitchen was quiet, dark, and perfect. He could just take a nap here, out of the way. It would be for the best. He had just about dozed off when Steve, trailed by Vision, passed through, both laden down with large piles of... was that string?
“Oh, hey Bruce. Almost missed you in the dark. You alright?”
“‘m fine. Just sitting, trying to decompress.” He nodded to the stack in Roger’s arms. “What about you? Where are you going with all of that?”
“Just a little something in the lounge.” Steve shrugged, sending a few balls of thread tumbling from the top of his pile. “I'll probably be balling for a couple of hours; hanging with Bucky and his favorite hooker. Rest of the team’ll be there, too.”
“I see.” He did not. Nothing that had just come out of Roger’s mouth made sense in any way that he could discern. Had it been anyone else, Bruce might have expected a CVA or worse. He tried for a placating nod, but was sure it came across as awkwardly confused as he felt.
“You should come. It's very relaxing.”
“Today was pretty rough.” It might not be too bad; Steve and Tony were insomniac workaholics, but the rest of the team was usually adamant about making sure people relaxed after a mission. Still… “I don't know Steve. I’m pretty worn out.”
“Oh, yeah... Hey, Viz, can you get mine?”
“Of course, Steven. I shall meet you in the lounge, then.” The armload that Steve had been carrying, as well as what he dropped, settled atop Vision’s already high stack as he continued out of the kitchen.
“Just hang on, I’ll be careful.” Arms now free, Steve stepped right up into his space, arms going behind Bruce’s back and under his knees, settling him gently before he walked out of the kitchen “I gotcha.”
So, apparently, this was happening.
☆•°•☆
Bruce wasn’t sure what, exactly, he had been carried into. There didn’t seem to be any hookers, which – given how long he’d known Tony – was something over which he had harboured a small, if genuine, concern. The whole team was crowded into the media lounge, with various bright bits of stuff surrounding all of them. He was jostled slightly as Steve was grabbed by Sergeant Barnes, whose lap seemed to be the home to some sort of eldritch terror of tiny threads and colourful plastic spools. “Stevie, look at this lacey nonsense doily I got goin.’”
“Looks good, Buck… What does it do?”
“Jack shit!” Barnes grinned widely as he shook his head, chuckling softly. “Ain’t it great, Stevie? It just sits around getting' ta be pretty. I’m gonna make one for your chair back later.”
“Buck… I really don't need a recliner doily.”
Bucky glared up at Steve through his hair, fingers working even as he looked away from the highly complicated lace, and Bruce had to marvel at the delicacy of the movements of which his prosthetic hand was capable. “Well, yer gettin’ one. And I'm gonna make it frivolous, and lacy, and totally useless because I can...” He shrugged, then dropped his gaze back to what Bruce could now recognize as some sort of veil. “... just as soon as I finish this trim.”
Popping up from behind them, Clint leaned in over the back of Bucky's chair, chin resting on the other man's head, with what looked a half-made blanket and mess of green yarn tucked up in the crook of his elbow. “Babe, have you seen my four-point-five?”
“Weren't you using it to fix the toaster? Check the kitchen…”
Bruce missed the rest of the conversation as he was walked to the other end of the room, Steve depositing him at one end of an overstuffed couch. Tony and Rhodey were beside him on one of the other couches, their laps, the cushions, and a very large table covered by tiny pieces of fabric in a myriad of colours.
Behind him, Spider Man – had he even seen the kid with the mask off? He looked so young – was circling a large frame hung with strands of rope. “… and I figure, this way I can have a permanent hammock for when I'm here, so I won't have to keep webbing up your ceilings, Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark?”
“Solid plan, kid. Sounds good.” Tony mumbled around a handful of t-shaped pins held between his lips. Bruce could see him fiddling with a carefully arranged square assembled from some of the tiny fabric pieces. “Anyway, I'm telling you, Rhodes, it's pretty amazing when you see it up close. Little tassels of data getting someone to the moon? LOL memory is a thing to see.”
“Yes, Tony. It's absolutely fascinating.” Rhodey nodded, picked up what had to be one of the tiniest needles Bruce had ever seen, and extended a hand to Stark. “Can you pass me the wax?”
“Sure, how's the square coming?”
He could hear the eye-roll in Rhodes’ voice. “Art takes time, Tones.”
Something poked at his foot, and he finally looked to the other end of the couch. Wanda raised a few fingers in a tiny wave from the opposite arm. She was surrounded by a hovering cloud of small wooden knitting needles and tiny plastic rings, a multicoloured lump that looked like it might be a sweater puddled across her lap. “Feeling better?"
“Uh... yeah. I didn’t realize that this was what Steve meant by ‘hooking.’”
Wanda smirked, floating another of her cabling needles away, reaching up for stitch marker. “The only one hooking today is Clint, provided he can find his hook. Bucky does not crochet, and Sam will have to wait until his wrist heals.”
“Oh…” Crocheting. With hooks. Hooking. Bruce cut his eyes to where Steve had settled on the floor. The blond grinned; he’d dropped that line on purpose. Jerk. He turned his attention back to Wanda, legs tucked up on the couch as he leaned over. “Do you crochet?”
“Sometimes for lace… My mother used to make it, though my brother made this.” She fingered the light shawl around her shoulders, extending the edge for him to feel. It was like touching spiderwebs; he couldn’t imagine how if didn’t fall apart in his hand. “I might help Sergeant Barnes with his doilies later. I never much enjoyed bobbin lace.”
“Ah…” Bruce nodded. Now that his concerns about spontaneous sex-workers had been laid to rest, he took the time to actually look around at the rest of the room.
Clint had wandered off in search of his hook, leaving Bucky to his lace, which he was weaving from thread so thin Bruce had trouble seeing the strands from where he sat. Natasha and Thor were both seated on stools, working at wooden frames on stands, though he was pretty certain that Thor’s was actually a loom. Sam – whose wrist was splinted – leaned back against Natasha’s leg, flipping through a book covered in pictures of little yarn dolls. Having foregone his usual habit of hovering, Vision was seated back to back with Steve, carefully winding stranded thread around small paper bobbins, marking each with a series of numbers. Behind him, Rogers was in the process of wrapping yarn into a kind of cylinder around something so wide it could only charitably be called a knitting needle.
“Okay, I'm almost finished balling the worsted-” So that was what he’d meant by balling. “- who – except Sam – is next?”
With his good hand, Sam pulled a wad of yarn from the canvas bag at Natasha’s feet, tossing it. Vision ducked, leaving it to land softly against the back of Roger’s head. “Steve… c’mon, help a guy out.”
“You always complain my cakes are too tight, and that it mucks up your tension.”
“I'm also trying to figure out why you do that. Isn't it boring?”
Steve frowned over his shoulder, then jerked a thumb over his to where Bucky sat, face screwed up in concentration beside him. “Between my ma, his ma, and Buck ‘n’ the girls? I got used to it. Besides, the sweaters are worth it. Right, Viz?”
“Absolutely, Captain Rogers.” Vision’s smile was subtle as he looked up at Wanda for moment. She nodded, and he went back to his winding. “Although, if I am honest, I'm looking forward to someday having one of Ms. Romanov’s lovely embroidered dish towels.”
“Speaking of: Natasha?” Bucky’s fingers had stilled, his jaw set. “You got something fine? Have to pick this out.”
Natasha flicked a needle to him across the room. It pinged against his metal palm, and Barnes tucked his hair up behind his ear as he hunched back over his work.
Still fussing over his quilt pieces, Tony lifted his head to look between the two. “Are you kids throwing sharps?”
“Maybe.”
“Knock it off. We don’t want anybody down an eye. You’ll never look as badass as Fury.”
There were a few grumbles before the room settled back in to silence, punctuated by Wanda’s tuneless humming, and the soft the tink-tink of the needle against Barnes’ metal fingers. Bruce had to admit; the guy would save a fortune on thimbles and bandages.
“Wasn’t in the toaster, or anywhere in the kitchen.” Clint huffed back into the room, finally seeming to notice the Bruce was there, and smiling. He wandered back out, only to return with a garish purple and red afghan, which he draped around Bruce’s shoulders, tucking it up around under his chin. “You want something? Tea? Glass of water? Book, maybe.”
“No… I'm good. Just… watching.” He burrowed into the soft woolen blanket, leaning back into the corner. This was cozy. He slipped his hands from the cover, signing a grateful. “Thank You.”
“You’re Welcome.” Clint followed with a shrug and a grin, sliding over to press a kiss to the top of Bucky’s head before he asked, “Anybody else need stuff from downstairs? I’m checking the range; see if I left it there.”
“Can you bring up the basket?”
“On it, Steve.”
Bruce let himself relax in the lull that followed Barton’s exit. Wanda kept up her knitting – shk-clik-shk-shk-clik – the sounds lining up almost perfectly with the repetitive motion of whatever Thor was passing back and forth on the loom. He tipped his head back to see that the kid was about halfway done with his hammock, now sitting on the floor and working over his head. Natasha muttered something in Russian, getting laughs from Barnes and Stark, and he let his eyelids drop. Bruce wasn’t sure how long he dozed, listening to the quiet sounds of activity around him.
☆•°•☆
When he awoke, Clint was back, leaning against Bucky’s side with his legs dangling off the arm of the couch. His lap was slowly disappearing beneath a mound of tiny striped hats. Sam and Vision were now piecing squares together under the careful guidance of a muttering Rhodes, and Tony was either asleep or in such awe as he contemplated the vastness of the ceiling that his eyes had drifted closed and he had started to drool a little. Bruce had acquired another blanket in the interim – this one knitted, with a complicated pattern of overlapping stitches that made it look woven – and Wanda appeared to have put aside her sweater, working on a large, split-rectangular something that was slowly taking shape across her lap and his feet.
It was Thor who next broke the silence, voice, for once, at a very reasonable volume level. “How is the shawl coming along, Miss Maximoff?”
“I just have the last bit of the edge to finish. And you, Odinson? Is the loom working out?”
“Splendidly.” Thor spun said loom to show off the portion of his work, threads making a design reminiscent of a woven basket.
“That's lovely, Thor.”
“Thank you, Natasha. How goes the making of your sampling of stitches?”
“It's progressing.” She adjusted the magnifier over her work. “Hopefully it makes an acceptable apartment warming gift.”
“Ah? I'm sure they will love it.”
“Let's see.” Setting her needle down, Natasha reached into the canvas bag on the floor beside her, pulling out a large oval hoop, about fourteen inches by nine, and held it up to the room. Though the stitched words weren’t all complete, Bruce could clearly read the phrase stenciled across the blank portions of the fabric. ‘Home is where them fuckers ain’t.’ sat at the center, surrounded by embroidered stars, fireworks, and what looked suspiciously like tiny punching fists. “Rogers? Thoughts?”
“It's perfect.” Steve gave her a thumbs up, passing the last ball of yarn over to Wanda. He stood and stretched. “Any more takers?” Bruce wasn’t sure what he was taking – probably more yarn – but Rogers shifted back to sitting. He pulled a hamper basket over from beneath Clint’s feet. “Alright, mending it is.”
Steve unpacked thread, needles, and a startlingly tiny pair of scissors from the basket, followed by something that looked strangely familiar.
“Are those my pants?” Bruce hadn’t meant to be so loud, and knew that he deserved the glare he got from Rhodes as Tony snorted awake.
“Yeah. They split on the seam. They'll be a little tighter on the leg, but that's the fashion these days, right?” Steve nodded as he mumbled back his answer, still managing to grin around a few pins.
Why did no one seem to think the best place to keep needles was maybe not in their mouths? Of course, Natasha and Bucky seemed a bit saner in their handling of sharp bits of metal – which was both comforting, and a little disturbing – so maybe it was just a Steve and Tony thing? Kind of like the ever-present sense of FoMo. “What’d I miss?”
“Well, Vision is no longer allowed to comment on the angles of my hexagons, and Steve is doing his thrifty thing.”
“You don't have to do that, Cap.” Tony chucked a spool of thread, so that it bounced off the top of Steve’s shoulder.
Bruce nodded his agreement, though he refrained from throwing anything. He only had his blankets, and he wasn’t keen to give them up. “Yeah, Tony's right.”
“Tony is only saying that because most of this is his. DUM-E can’t always put him out before he ends up burning the sleeves off his shirts.”
“I can replace those.”
“One; that's wasteful since you'll happily wear sleeveless.” Steve threw the spool back, hitting Tony in the chest. “Two; none of us want to deal with your mopey it had sentimental value face. I'm doing this for Rhodes as much as for you.”
Stark sputtered, then slid into what – had he been a child – Bruce would have called a full on pout. He and Steve frowned back and forth at each other for several minutes before Rhodey poked him in the shoulder, and Tony rolled his eyes to look away. “Barton, did you ever find your hook?” Clint shook his head at Tony’s query. “FRIDAY, can you check around?”
“Mr. Barton’s crochet hook is in the garage lab, sir.”
“What’s it doing down there?”
“It is in use. Let me show you.” FRIDAY projected a live video feed onto the sidewall. The crochet hook was indeed in use, albeit possibly not as intended. DUM-E had a tight grip on it, and was slowly pulling it in and around the yarn U held, making a lopsided single chain of bright red yarn across one of the lab monitors. The two must have been going at it for hours; DUM-E wasn’t moving particularly quickly, but there were five colours of yarn visible across the garage, looping around most of the cars and a good half of the workbench area. “Are… are you seeing this?”
“Looks like your bots yarn-bombed you, Tones.”
“Is it wrong that I’m oddly proud of them?” Tony's voice was soft, almost choked. “Also, Barton, you’re not getting that hook back. It belongs to my idiot children, now. The yarn, too.”
“Aww… afghan, no.” Despite his words, Clint seemed as fascinated by the newly crafty robots as the rest of them. Bucky patted his shoulder. “Well, at least they only took the RedHeart.”
☆•°•☆
The team sat in reflective silence for a few moments, watching the bots continue their seemingly aimless creations, before everyone returned to their projects. The afternoon rolled on. Pieces were finished, others started. Team members shifted seats, or sprawled on the floor. There were conversations, though most were quiet and relatively sedate. Discounting, of course, a flurried bout of signing between Clint and Wanda that almost started a yarn fight, but was swiftly stopped by a Winter Soldier-esque grumble about lace and concentration and murder by tatting needles, accompanied by Natasha’s best lid your shit side-eye. Peter finished his hammock, but – once he realized what would be involved in mounting it – just webbed it to the ceiling, anyway.
At some point after the DUM-E incident, a silent consensus was reached that on-top-of-Bruce was the de facto resting place for any finished projects. He was now happily snuggled under two blankets, a sweater and a shawl, a dozen baby hats, two wash cloths, a bridal veil, and at least six newly-sleeveless shirts. Bruce closed his eyes, relishing the quiet comfort of his team. Maybe this was what family homes were supposed to feel like.
☆•°•☆
Bruce was petering at the edge of sleep, breath even and eyes closed, as the work finally wound up that evening. He muzzily considered getting up.
At the end of the sofa, Wanda winced as she finally unfolded herself, looking back to where he slept. “Should we wake him?”
“He looks peaceful.” Natasha shook her head, extending a hand to help the younger woman up. “Bruce doesn’t sleep much to begin with; let’s let him be.”
“Yeah.” Clint draped one of the products of Bucky’s lace doily tendencies atop Bruce’s pile, taking a moment to make sure the rest of the fabric and yarn-work blanketing him was tucked up. “We can wake him when the pizza arrives.”
“Speaking of, where’s Pete? That kid’s like a black hole for food.”
“You genius child is out, too, Tones.” Peter, like Bruce, had fallen asleep. At thirty feet off the ground, no one seemed anxious to get up to wake him.
Tony nodded back to him, already heading out the door. “Growing boy; let him snooze.”
Mumbling agreement, the rest of the team slowly followed, all variously stretching out after a long periodof stillness. Natasha yawned politely into the back of her hand. Bucky leaned heavily on Clint, metal arm draped around the other’s waist. Wanda gave Bruce’s head a gentle pet as she walked by. The last one out, Steve turned off the light, leaving himself silhouetted in the doorway. “Get some rest, Doctor.”
Bruce Banner closed his eyes and went back to sleep.