#wanda witch

You were in the common room, chilling and having a snack with Wanda, when Steve approached.

“Hey Wands, I’m going out for lunch with Bucky and would rather be left alone. Scent me?”

You were so startled you nearly dropped the entire bowl of popcorn onto the expensive suede couch, for which your father would have murdered you.

Wanda just nodded. “Of course, Steve, no problem.”

You gawked at them. “You guys aren’t…” You made a vague gesture with your hand. You remembered a story Steve had told the group during family dinner one night about his first girlfriend back in the forties. “Fonduing?” you finished.

Steve laughed. “No, no, no. I’m just pre-rut and don’t want any omegas coming onto me.”

You snorted. “That’s a bit conceited, isn’t it?”

Wanda was dead serious. “Oh no. Any alpha, but especially one as strong and… alpha-y as Steve—pheromone forward is a phrase I’ve heard—could have an issue. Same as we do.” Wanda was an omega, like you. “They’re less… scared for their life, I guess, since they could more easily overpower most omega harassers, especially Steve obviously, but. It’s a risk, going out this close to his rut.”

Your mouth opened and then closed again. “Really?” Both Avengers nodded. “How come I haven’t read about this? In all the Omega Rights literature?”

Wanda sighed. “Omegas are the ones at the bottom of the totem pole, but everyone’s screwed by the system. In the movement, as the privileged group, it’s seen as stealing the spotlight for alphas to complain, and outside of it it’s seen as un-alpha-y—submissive.”

“That’s awful!” you exclaimed. There were hums of agreement around you.

Just as Steve leant down to expose his neck to Wanda, Bucky emerged around the corner, tugging his worn, black leather jacket over his beefy shoulders. Steve’s eyes widened in realization and he straightened up before Wanda could carry out his request.

“Oh wait actually,” he murmured, “I don’t wanna leave Bucky taking the hits. We’ll just deal with it together.”

“I can scent him too,” Wanda offered.

Steve’s eyes darted between you and Bucky in a completely unsubtle manner. “I don’t think he wants to be scented by you, Wanda…” he murmured softly, but you still heard him.

You shrunk a little into the plush sofa. “Is it… normal for friends to scent each other just to avoid harassment?” you asked quietly.

Wanda, Steve and Bucky all nodded. Wanda added, “It can be a super intimate act, or it can be totally casual, just to keep alphas and omegas off each other’s backs.”

You stared at your lap a moment longer, nodding slowly.

The seedling of an idea was germinating in your mind.

That idea was pushed to the side when Bucky came around the couch to say goodbye with a kiss to your cheek. Your brain flashed back to that day in the diner, one of your first dates, when a particularly forward omega had invaded Bucky’s space. The memory of his distress-altered odor made your stomach churn. You wouldn’t be there to come to his aid this time, and if they wouldn’t listen to Bucky, they wouldn’t listen to Steve either. Not without one or the other of them getting aggressive and putting on a domineering alpha demeanor that you knew neither would pull out at the deli.

You grabbed Bucky’s hands to keep him in place, like you had that first day you met him. You couldn’t look him in the eye and blood rushed to your cheeks as you stammered out, “I can—can scent you. If you want. And Wanda can scent Steve and then you’ll both be left alone.”

His eyes sparkled with the prospect, and a teasing smile stretched his lips. “Don’t like the idea of me getting attention from other omegas?”

You stared him down. “I don’t like the idea of you getting unwanted attention from anyone.”

He chuckled softly at your evasive answer. “Yeah, all right.”

Bucky sat down on the couch next to you, leaning back and baring the side of his neck to you. Awkwardly, you leaned in, maintaining your balance with a hand on his chest. He placed his right hand over yours on his pec, and stabilized you both with his left hand on your hip.

You took a gentle sniff of his scent gland first, allowing the sweet aroma to calm your jittery nerves, and letting the relaxed vibe you could pick up through it assure you that Bucky truly wanted this.

You laid a sloppy open-mouthed kiss right on the puckered piece of skin where his musk was strongest. He tasted as good as he smelled and you nearly moaned aloud. His grip on your hip tightened slightly in reaction, likely prompted by a similar response. You pulled back.

“Did it work?” you asked, embarrassed at how out of breath you sounded.

Wanda sniffed the air experimentally. “Yup! Steve?”

Steve leaned down, and Wanda licked his scent gland; the entire affair was much quicker and less intimate than the moment you had just shared with Bucky. “Thanks, Wanda.” Steve pattered her back. It felt incongruously casual considering she had just licked his neck.

“Thank you, doll.” Bucky placed a delicate kiss on your temple as he rose off the couch, finally releasing his hold on your hip and hand.

When the super-soldiers were out of the room, your brain returned to its sapling of an idea. You mulled it around, tilled the land around the little idea-sprout.

Wanda could sense your contemplative mood. “What are you thinking about?” she asked through a mouthful of popcorn. Wanda never read people’s thoughts unless invited.

“It’s terrible and unfair that people have to be ‘taken,’ or at least pretend they are, to get people to leave them alone. But it’s the reality. And I’m more than willing to help Bucky, and I’m glad you can help Steve, but what about the people who don’t have friends of who can scent them whenever they want to run an errand undisturbed?”

Wanda hummed. “Some people put on fake bonding marks, like temporary tattoos, but if someone gets too close, you can be literally sniffed out.”

Your bud of an idea suddenly bloomed. You vaulted off the couch and scrambled over the back, shouting a hasty thanks to your friend before sprinting to Bruce’s lab.

When you came barreling through the doors, Bruce was startled into dropping his pencil. Luckily that was all he was holding instead of a vial of something dangerous or something important.

“Well hello there. Welcome to the lab, Y/n, is everything all right?” Bruce asked, bending over to pick up his pencil and managing to knock the glasses off his own face in the process.

“No everything is not fine this world is stupid and people deserve better than to be harassed for not being in a relationship,” you rambled, pacing furiously around the room.

“All right, all right, calm down,” Bruce cooed, coming around a table to block your path. “What did you have in mind?”

“Perfume,” you explained. “that mimics alpha or omega pheromones. So people can scent themselves.”

Bruce shook his head sadly. “People have tried. Fragrance and cosmetics companies market stuff like that every other season, and it never works.”

You arched a brow at him. “But has the foremost scientist in biotechnology ever taken a stab at it?” you asked pointedly.

“No…” he mused, rubbing at his chin. “I suppose it could be an interesting challenge…”

“Yes, please do it! I’ll help you market it and everything. And you can use whatever samples you need from me. I’m not a scientist, but I want to help in any way I can.” You jumped up and down with excitement.

Bruce chuckled at your antics. “I’ll let you know if I need anything.”

You squealed in delight and skipped out of the room.

It meant a lot for you to be able to help in some small way to make this messed up world better for people who weren’t as fortunate as you. Who didn’t have a doting alpha like Bucky to scent them and protect them from entitled douchebags. Who didn’t have everything they could ever need right in one compound, thus removing the need to go places that might be dangerous.

Bucky stares forlornly at the empty platform. Bruce rattles off numbers that get smaller and smaller, until there’s nothing. In the back of his head, Bucky can hear the tizzy Sam goes into, but his brain won’t focus on it. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and turns away, towards the lake.

That’s when something catches his eye, or rather, someone, and an idea floats to the surface of his mind.

“Excuse me, Agent Maximoff? he asks shyly, approaching her where she stands gazing out at the water with Agent Barton’s arm slung over her shoulders.

She breaks out of her reverie with a bit of a start, then softens her expression when she sees how nervous Bucky is, his eyes darting everywhere like a startled kitten.

“Call me Wanda, please,” she says softly. “What can I do ya for, Sergeant Barnes?”

“Uh, well, in that case, call me Bucky, please,” he stammers in reply, feeling awkward as hell, but she only smiles warmly.

“Ok, Bucky. Are you feeling all right?” Wanda’s head is tilted to the side, her eyes round and caring.

I’m, um, I’m just…” Clint’s eyes are also questioning, and though Bucky remembers him being nice enough when they fought together in Germany, he feels uncomfortable asking his question with him here. “Could I um, could I talk to you?  Privately?” Bucky winces at his own behavior, hoping he isn’t coming across as rude or creepy.

“Sure,” Wanda agrees. She gives Clint a brief hug and then he wanders off further down the bank to give the pair, both of them once-adversaries and now-friends to him, their space.

“So what’s up?” Wanda asks, turning her attention entirely on Bucky. She comes across as attentive and caring, and the thought crosses Bucky’s mind that she must be an excellent listener.

“I, um…” Bucky scratches the back of his neck. He was fueled by a very clear idea when he walked over here, and now he is doubting everything, unsure how to even broach the subject. “Steve told me about when… About the time, before you joined the team, when you um… Messed with the team’s heads.”

Wanda’s head bows, and an expression Bucky is deeply familiar with passes over her face—that of shame.

“Yeah…” she confirms. “Not my proudest moment. I’m beyond fortunate the team was willing to accept me, after that.”

“I didn’t mean to… You were young, and misled by Hydra. I’m certainly the last one to ever…” Bucky stumbles over his words, trying desperately to pull Wanda back from the brink of sullenness. In the end, he has to huff out of a breath of air to re-center himself and get his thoughts in order before he can continue to speak.

“You showed people their greatest fear, right?” Bucky asks.

“I mean, sort of. Not really, though, it’s more like—”

But Bucky doesn’t let her finish, too scared he’ll lose his nerve if he doesn’t make the request right this damn second.

“Do me.”

Wanda’s eyes are wide with shock as her head snaps up to look at Bucky. “What?! Why would you want that?” she asks. “Tony freely admitted that it screwed him up for years, and though no one else will admit it, I’m pretty sure he’s not the only one.”

Bucky bows his head again. She has no idea how true that statement is.

“I just… I want to know what the others went through.” Bucky shrugs, trying to come across as casual, but Wanda isn’t convinced. She looks at him with her eyebrows furrowed in concern.

This is not the type of request to make lightly, and a casual nature is not the winning tactic here. Bucky huffs out another breath and turns towards the lake, trying once more to gather his thoughts and find a better way to express them.

“Ever since Shuri took the brainwashing out of my head, ever since I escaped from Hydra really, I haven’t had a clue who I am anymore,” Bucky explains slowly. “My hopes, my dreams… even my fears. I just think it would be enlightening. And I’ve definitely faced worse, including in my own head.” He turns back towards Wanda, searching her face to see if his explanation has worked to convince her.

And at least she is truly considering it now. She is looking in Bucky’s direction, but her eyes are glazed over like she isn’t really seeing him. She stays like that for several long moments, and Bucky holds his breath.

“All right,” she finally answers quietly.

Bucky lays his hands over hers where it has floated up to rest on her opposite shoulder as she hugs herself. “Thank you,” he says sincerely.

Wanda closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, centering herself. She drops her hands to her sides again and shakes out her arms, willing the tension away from her shoulders.

“Now I haven’t done this in a while,” she admits.

“I should hope not,” Bucky says with a slight chuckle, trying to lighten the mood. But Wanda’s expression remains deathly serious.

“It won’t be easy. For me either, but definitely not for you,” she warns. “It’s quite brutal.”

Bucky steels himself; he widens his stance a little and squares his shoulders. It’s not like he’s preparing for a fight, but more like he’s readying himself to take some heartbreaking news.

“I can handle it,” the White Wolf assures the Scarlet Witch. “I’m ready.”

“All right, then. Here we go.”

Even before Wanda’s fingertips have made contact with Bucky’s temples, even as they are still rising from her sides, wisps of energy begin to float away from the pads of her fingers like the most delicate smoke curling and dancing its way up to his head.

When those tendrils make their way into Bucky’s brain, it is like he is being shoved backward by anvil blows to his head, chest and stomach. The air is knocked out of him entirely, and hee feels dizzy and nauseous.

But when he opens his eyes, he is back at the funeral.

The platform is still empty. Steve is berating Dr. Hulk, who is smashing away at the tiny keyboard furiously with his humungous green fingers.

But their sounds and the whirlwind of their movements are distant in Bucky’s mind. His eyes are drawn to a lone figure on a bench on the bank of the lake. The figure’s build is familiar but slightly hunched, and he has thick, white hair. Bucky walks towards him automatically, without even realizing he is doing so. He is so barely aware of the movement of his legs or the feel of the ground beneath his feet that it is more like he is floating than walking.

Suddenly, Sam is there, standing next to the bench, next to the elderly man whose face Bucky doesn't need to see to know exactly who he is.  

“So, did something go wrong, or did something go right?” Sam asks. It is less like Bucky is picking up on the conversation with his enhanced hearing and more like it is being broadcast straight into his mind.

“Well, after I put the stones back, I thought, maybe I’ll try some of that life Tony was telling me to get,” Steve responds, his voice the same voice that Bucky knows deep in his bones, but slightly altered. A little raspier. Aged.

“How’d that work out for you?”

Now Bucky is floating in front of the bench instead of behind it. He doesn’t look down to see if he is floating above the water, as would have to be the case if he is in his body at all because his eyes are locked on the scene before him and he can’t look away. He doesn’t have any peripheral vision; anything that isn’t Sam or Steve or the bench or the tiny patch of grass beneath it is pure blackness.

And that is how Bucky can remember it isn’t real. That is how he can center himself.

A wispy, nostalgic smile sweeps over Steve’s face. It is a perfectly pleasant expression; there is nothing forced or creepy about it in any way. A true friend should feel uplifted to see such an expression on their pal. And yet it makes Bucky’s heart sink first down to his stomach, then seemingly to the very bottom of his toes and out of his body entirely.

“It was beautiful,” Steve replies.

Sam has his own smile, small and bittersweet but undeniably present. “I’m happy for you. Truly.” The tone in his voice is sincere, in a way Bucky could never be if that were him.

Steve thanks him. They have an entire conversation where Steve passes on the shield, clearly newly polished and not very recently used, but Bucky hears none of it. It comes across as buzzing in his ears. His mind is racing instead. Why is he such a complete jerk? Why can’t he just be happy for his best friend?

Then again, how could Steve leave him? How could he ever choose Peggy over him? And right when Bucky was about to admit how deeply in love with him he is, too.

At first, Bucky thought Steve was coming to admit to him the same thing when he first approached him before the funeral, and his heart had been hammering in his chest. But then Steve had told him about the vision Wanda caused in him, and that he needed to get his dance with Peggy, and Bucky had been absolutely devastated. Heartbroken and lost and angry and miserable and every negative emotion he had thought Hydra had made him numb to. But he just hugged his friend and wished him all the best.

Suddenly, Bucky’s ability to hear is restored. Sam is holding the shield down and slightly away from him, like it’s some foreign object that might burn him, or a feral animal that might bite him or run away at any moment.

“You wanna tell me about her?” he asks, nodding to Steve’s left hand.

Bucky’s vision tunnels in on the band of gold around Steve’s fourth finger.

“No,” the Captain replies simply, his voice teasing and lilting and youthful again.

When Bucky’s vision widens back out, he is in a dingy bar, in the 1940s. Peggy is exactly as he remembers her, and Steve is his usual, stupidly handsome and perfectly charming self. But somehow he is a blend of the goofier pre-serum self that Bucky had fallen in love with, his new buff and abundantly awkward but eternally hopeful just-post-serum self, and his confident but weary 21st-century self all rolled into one. Like how he is in Bucky’s mind; the sum of all his myriad parts good and bad, and all the more beautiful for it.

Bucky doesn’t look down at himself, but he somehow knows that he is just as he is now, his broken, scarred, jaded, unloveable post-Hydra self.

Peggy and Steve gaze into each other’s eyes, Steve so obviously helplessly in love, and Peggy in every way the perfect mid-century dame with her sharp eyeliner and buoyant victory curls and bright red lipstick.

“No, I don’t think I will.”

This Steve says it. No, the elderly Steve says it. No, wait.

Bucky is getting himself confused. He is even beginning to lose sight of the fact that this is fake. The hallucination is getting out of control, and he needs to get out of it, now.

He wakes up flat on his ass on the side of the lake. His heart is hammering in his chest, his eyes wide and his pupils dilated—exactly how he would have expected his body to react to his worst nightmare, back when he expected that to have something to do with Hydra. At the very least, he had expected his induced vision to contain some kind of fight. He is more confused than he is scared, but his body’s reaction would cause an onlooker to think otherwise.

“What the hell was that?” he asks breathily, looking up at Wanda with a pleading expression. She is kneeling by his side, still clutching his arm from helping him down when he collapsed.

“I don’t know what you saw. All I did was activate it, then I got out of your head, out of courtesy,” she explains, letting him go and sitting down beside him. “You don’t have to tell me,” she adds hastily.

Bucky stares out at the lake for a while, his mind a complete whirlwind and totally blank all at once.

“It—That wasn’t my greatest fear, was it? It couldn’t have been. It was so… tame.”

Wanda’s lips are tight, her face unreadable. “I don’t think it makes you see your greatest fear per se, but more… what would make your heart hurt the most? It’s just meant to mess with your head. I guess it’s closer to your greatest weakness than your greatest fear.”

Bucky nods slowly. “That makes more sense.”

His thoughts are one-track now: I was going to tell him I love him. I was just about to tell him I love him. If only I had told him how desperately in love with him I am, maybe he wouldn’t have gone.

Bucky is so lost in his thoughts, his eyes gazing out over the majestic lake without truly seeing it, that he doesn’t even notice when a commotion begins to stir behind him. It takes Wanda roughly shaking his shoulder and forcing him to look for him to even turn around.

And there he is. Steve. Swatting at sparks flying out of the elbow of the time travel suit. His hair is grown out again, like it was when he was on the lam, and there’s definitely a little gray in his beard, but nothing like the silver-maned senior citizen from Bucky’s hallucination. And he’s not quite on the time travel platform but he’s close, like he tried to nail the coordinates but didn’t get them quite right, which is exactly what happened.

Bruce approaches him and grabs him into a hug that would have crushed the bones of anyone un-enhanced, and may have cracked even Steve’s super-powered ribs just a little, but that’s all right because they’ll heal in no time.

“Oh, buddy, I thought I’d lost you,” Bruce sighs, finally releasing him.

“Yeah,” Steve rubs the back of his neck, his expression a little guilty. “I made a stop. Thought I had accounted for it and left myself enough Pym particles. Turned out I didn’t. Then I had to wait until Pym invented the particles to get more. I don’t think the first prototypes mesh as well with the suits as the later versions, but I couldn’t wait any longer. Sorry if that means I burned the suit forever.”

“Screw the suit, man! I’m just thrilled as hell you’re alive!” Sam is next to pull Steve into a tight hug, his squeeze not as powerful as the green guy’s but just as effusive in emotion.

When Steve is able to get away, Bucky is standing nearby, his hands stuffed in his pockets, unable to meet Steve’s eyes.

“What? No hug from you, Buck?” Steve looks a bit awkward, but hopeful.

Bucky shrugs. “We just hugged a few minutes ago,” he mumbles.

“Well for me it’s been twenty years. And I could really use a hug from my best friend.” Steve takes a few steps towards his fellow super-soldier, not yet holding his arms out in fear of being denied.

But Bucky could never deny him anything. Tentatively, he wraps his arms around Steve’s burly frame, and thinks once again how he’ll never get used to his altered physique. After a moment, he starts to squeeze tighter, tucking his chin over Steve’s shoulder, unable to keep a rogue tear from dripping down his cheek.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Bucky whispers.

“What? Thought I’d gotten knocked off on the mission? Oh ye of little faith,” Steve retorts, but he rubs Bucky’s back in a comforting manner.

Bucky pulls back, his brow furrowed a little. “No… I thought you were going back to Peggy.”

“Yeah, for my dance…” Steve replies, his own brow furrowing now, in both confusion and concern. “I told you that…”

“Yeah and I thought you… I thought it was for keeps.” Bucky sticks his hands back in his pockets and digs his heel into the ground.

“What?” Steve exclaims. “How could you think that? No! No!”

“You said you needed…” Bucky waves his hand in a vague gesture. “Closure. You said you wanted to retire. Something about one last solo mission…”

“Yeah! Yeah! I’m gonna pass the shield on to Sam. No more solo missions. Ever. Not even life.” Steve takes Bucky’s hands in his. “That didn’t even make any sense. I know I’m bad at words. It’s my fault you got mixed up from what I said; I must have explained myself badly. No, Buck, I didn’t… I couldn’t ever leave you.”

Bucky doesn’t pull his hand out of Steve’s, but he doesn’t turn his hand in Steve’s to hold it back either. Not just yet. “So your dance with Peggy…”

“It was just closure. One dance. I fantasized about it for years, before being frozen and then even after waking up a bit, but then it got twisted into this grotesque nightmare after Wanda did that thing with my head. It was never about Peggy, it was about… Not being able to ever really be done with war, and that’s what it came to symbolize. In the hallucination Wanda induced, it wasn’t that we were finally dancing. It was that we were dancing while around us, everyone was still dying. The work wasn’t done. She was saying the war was over, but my eyes and ears were saying otherwise. It was right there in the dance hall, and it was terrifying. I needed a dance with Peggy that was in the peace and calm, one that was real and tangible so the memory of the physical sensations could override the memory of the nightmare. But that’s all I needed. Just one dance.”

“And now?” Bucky’s voice is nothing but a whisper, terrified if he speaks up any louder he’ll shatter the moment, ruin everything.

“And now, I don’t want any more solo missions. Not even life.”

Bucky’s face is almost breaking into a smile. He’s always been able to decode Steve’s dumbassery, but he wants to hear him say it.

“Punk, you said it yourself; that doesn’t make any sense.” Bucky turns his metal hand so he can grip Steve’s and use it to pull him closer to him, lifting his other hand to caress his cheek. Steve leans into his touch and closes his eyes. “What do you want now?”  

“I want you, Buck,” Steve murmurs. Then he opens his eyes, and grabs the back of Bucky’s neck, leaning forward so their foreheads are touching. “I love you, James Buchanan Barnes.”

Bucky’s smile is wide. “I love you too, punk.”

You were moved into a large room, more of a suite actually. You couldn’t remember any of your previous living arrangements, but you were sure it must be roomier and swankier than you had ever had. When you received it, it was relatively bare. A bedroom with a queen sized bed and brown wooden dresser, bathroom with gray tile, living room area with a couch, a window with a little nook, and a tall, empty bookcase.

It looked so lonely. You were determined to fill it.

You spent hours in used bookstores, independent bookstores, larger chain bookstores, even random garage sales, until you had completely filled the shelves to overflowing in the course of a little over a week.

One day, while you were reading Pride and Prejudice in your little nook that you had outfitted with lots of fluffy pillows and blankets, Tony came into your suite, the vestiges of a smile on his face.

“Hi, Dad!” you greeted cheerfully, sticking your bookmark in, setting your book down and rising to cross to him.

Tony’s face lit up; he loved that you started calling him ‘Dad’ so quickly.

“Hey sweetie,” he responded, still grinning. “Can you come to my floor a minute?”

“Sure. Couldn’t you have gotten FRIDAY to call me over though?”

“I could’ve, but I wanted to do it in person.” His smile turned sly, and you became curious as to what he was up to.

When you arrived at his suite, Pepper was waiting on the couch. Spread out in front of her on the coffee table were a bunch of papers. This wasn’t unusual; Pepper often worked from various points in the compound that weren’t her office. But the look on her face was a similar shade of sly to Tony’s, and your suspicions remained aroused.

“Have a seat.” Tony patted the back of his leather recliner, and you tentatively perched yourself on the edge of the chair.  

“What’s going on?”

Pepper picked up one of the papers on the coffee table, glanced at it, then put it down and picked up another instead. She took the few steps in your direction and extended it to you with a broad smile.

You glanced at her distrustfully and mumbled your thanks.

As you read down the document, your jaw fell to the floor and your eyebrows lifted to the ceiling.

“Read it out loud?” Tony requested cheekily. He knew damn well what was written there.

With a shaky voice, you recited, “The State of New York and the Federal Government of the United States of America hereby recognizes Anthony Edward Stark and Virginia Pepper Potts as the legal guardians of Y/N Y/m/N, henceforth legally known as Y/N Y/m/N Stark-Potts.”

You’d chosen your name several days earlier, simply because you liked it. This was the first you were seeing it written down, on a legal certificate no less. A legal certificate establishing that you had a place in this world, had people who cared about you, had a family.

“This is ok, even though I’m a legal adult?” you asked. Tony nodded, then, when he noticed your eyes were still directed at the certificate, he uttered, “Yes.”

Tears were streaming down your face when you finally looked up at your now-parents. “Thank you,” you whispered.

Tony held his arms out and you raced into them, enthusiastically accepting his warm hug. Pepper laughed and when you finally turned away from your new dad to your new mom, you hugged her just as tight.

“Welcome to the family, sweetheart,” Tony said, rubbing your back as you embraced his wife.

“And there’s one more thing,” Pepper said when you pulled away. She reached over to the coffee table for another of the papers.

You looked it over once she’d placed it in your hands. “This is… a job contract?”

Tony nodded. “I know it’s nepotism now, but it wasn’t yesterday when I drew up this contract so… Also I don’t care.”

The form made you official Librarian and Archivist of the Avengers.

Your eyes watered again. “Thank you, I-I don’t know what to say.”

“You’re welcome, sweetheart.” “We just want you to be happy.” Tony and Pepper said simultaneously.

They threw a party in your honor, to welcome you to the family, professionally and personally. You finally met the rest of the members of the team: Thor and Loki Odinson, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, Maria Hill, Sam Wilson, James Rhodes, Peter Parker, the Vision, Scott Lang, Carol Danvers. Even Nick Fury made an appearance to sit broodingly by the bar for a bit. And of course, dozens and dozens of people from seemingly nowhere because Tony Stark had thrown the party.

You danced with everyone. Wanda, Nat and Maria were so much fun to just jump around with. Pietro and Sam were both complete charmers, insisting on dancing slow songs with you. You flirted with cute people at the bar just to get a rise out of Tony, and experimented with what alcoholic beverages you liked, perhaps a little too much. (The answer is: either something fruity, or something more along the lines of liqueur or scotch. Beer is gross, wine is ok, and shots aren’t your thing.)

Everyone on the team was so kind to you and welcoming. Clint was right when he said your sense of humor would fit in well; you were fast friends with most everyone, and everything just seemed to click. You were so happy.

A few months after waking up, you were comfortably settled into life at the compound. Books were your passion and your work. You’d decorated your room with posters of pretty book covers and blown up prints of your favorite children’s book illustrations. Your personal bookshelves were overflowing and, though it’s not the most practical for finding things, color coordinated.

The existing library of the compound was entirely taken apart and put back together by your hands. You re-organized according to the Library of Congress system, thoroughly ensuring every title got catalogued, and were making a ton of new acquisitions. Tony was paying for you to get your Masters in Library Science online (it may have taken some finagling to get a school to accept you seeing as you had no prior qualifications nor could you attest to where you got your education, but you wrote a handful of eloquent, persuasive essays and Tony undoubtedly handed over a fork-load of cash and you were in).

Tony was right about being a beta making everything easier. You got your period, but it was relatively light, and you didn’t get one of those heat things that sounded terrible, nor a rut which sounded equally terrible. Getting your period was something you could deal with, felt normal. Though you couldn’t remember ever having one before, you naturally understood it as a concept in a way you hadn’t understood the presentation system, and handled it with grace. Well, as much grace as you could curled up in a ball with a heating pad for the first two days.