The World We Live In

Pepper walked from the elevator towards the kitchen to get something to drink before heading to the room she shared with Tony. She had just returned from a conference in Toronto and was tired. She'd been up for hours and it was only 6:30 A.M.

She got a glass of water and downed it. She was just about to turn to go to bed, when she heard the faintest sound coming from the living room. She walked in and found a girl that she had yet to meet sleeping on the couch. She assumed it was the new member of the team Tony had been telling her about. Clint was in a sitting position on the floor leaning against the couch asleep.

There were containers of candy, ice cream, Chinese food and bags of various chips and stuff littered about.

Pepper sighed and nudged Clint. He woke up and glared. "What?"

"You're gonna hurt your back and this mess needs to get cleaned up later," she said.

"Tilly and I will handle it later," he said.

"Tilly?"

He jerked a thumb back towards Matilda, accidently hitting her in the back, waking her up. She let out a groan and sat up. She noticed the blonde woman looking at her.

"You must be Pepper," Matilda said. She stuck her hand out for Pepper to shake. "Matilda Knight."

Pepper shook it. "You're the one, who made Tony dance?"

"Yep." Tilda looked around and shook her head. "Sorry about the mess," she said. She began to clean it up, not moving from her spot on the couch. The items moved slowly and wobbly a clear indication of Matilda's fatigue. A few moments later the room was clean.

Pepper watched on impressed. Not only did this woman contribute to the team, she also had the decency to clean up after herself, and she kept Tony in line. "I think you and I are going to get along just fine," Pepper said.

"Awesome," Matilda said.

"You should go to bed. I'll have JARVIS get one of the guys to get Clint. Steve will be waking up soon anyways."

"I got him." Matilda looked down at Clint and smacked him the head repeatedly until he stirred.

"What?" he growled.

"Get up."

"I don't wanna," he whined.

"Get. Up." She left no room for argument in her tone, despite the tiredness tainting it.

"No."

"Either you move or I move you," she threatened.

"Do it," he challenged, not thinking she would actually do it.

She sighed and stood up. She put her hand out flat towards him. She made a fist and lifted him up on his feet. She held him a few inches off of the ground and started walking towards the elevator.

Clint fell right back asleep.

"They normally don't do that," Matilda mused. She waved good-bye to Pepper, who watched her leave with a small smile playing on her lips.

Pepper walked into her room and changed, before crawling into bed beside Tony. He shifted and wrapped an arm around Pepper's waist. She snuggled closer to him.

"You weren't supposed to be back until later," Tony said.

"Caught an earlier flight," she said, "Met the new girl."

"Incubus?"

"Huh?"

"Matilda? Whatever."

"Yeah. She seems nice."

"She's evil."

"Well she didn't seem so to me, curled up on the couch. Apparently she and Clint had a late night pig out."

This peaked Tony's interested, but instead of investigating, he just fell back asleep with Pepper in his arms.



At 9:30 A.M, Natasha was in the training room, waiting on Clint. She had already done her warm ups and solo exercises. Now all she was waiting on was her sparring partner. She waited for about twenty minutes, before turning to JARVIS for help.

"JARVIS, where is Clint?" she asked.

"Mr. Barton is still in bed. He was up late last night with Ms. Knight," JARVIS replied.

Natasha rolled her eyes. 'We get a new girl and he's slacking. Figures,' she thought. She decided to head to the shooting range and practice since Clint wasn't there. That bored her after a while and she left the training area and took the steps up to the guys' floor. She tested the knob. It wasn't locked.

She carefully walked over and before she could touch him, her wrists were pinned down. When Clint realized, who it was he let go. "What?" he grunted.

"You were supposed to be down in the training center an hour ago," she said.

"Tired," he said, "Matilda and I went flying around New York on a surfboard then bought a ton of food and watched terminator movies until 4:30."

"Just go back to sleep," Natasha said. She assumed Clint's story was just his tiredness. She knew he had not been sleeping well, the mental effects of the battle Loki were lasting far longer than the physical ones. She didn't know what to do. She was an assassin, a spy. She was trained to manipulate the mind, not heal it.



Matilda hadn't been exactly sure how her lessons were going to work. She knew what she had to teach, which was pretty much everything. She wasn't sure exactly how to work it all in together. She saw it in her mind as two separate things. She had to teach the academic courses, math, reading, English and social studies, but she also had to teach other lessons, made to teach the two men how to function in modern society.



It was in the middle of T2 that she brought her notebook to her and started jotting down what she needed to do.

About half way through, she slammed the notebook down on her lap and swore.

Clint looked up from his orange chicken. "What?"

"Can't keep squeezing by with basic question and answer lessons. It's been a week. I need to do something substantial," she had said.

Clint grabbed her note book and looked at what she had in mind. He scribbled on it for a few moments with Matilda watching over his shoulder. She was pleasantly surprised, when he began to work out some of her issues, by filling in training times and habits. He filled out the schedule and handed it back.

She read it over. His writing was terrible. "Maybe you should join the lessons. I'll teach you how to write," she said.

"I'm paid to shoot, not write," he said.

She laughed and stole a piece of his chicken. He swatted at her, but she merely removed her hand from the equation and used her mind.



"I have finally figured out what the hell I am going to do."

Steve and Thor looked up at her.

"Starting next week since it's Thursday. Mondays and Wednesdays, we work on your technology, math, government and history skills."

"Government?" Steve asked.

"Yes, it's more or less how to deal with clearance levels, S.H.I.E.L.D. and such. Actual Civics will be in history."

He nodded.

Tuesdays and Thursdays we're gonna work on more liberal things, the arts, lit, pop culture, today's society, and your behavior. You'll be able to fit in with society, but you will have manners, and when needed and have proper etiquette. Anything else we need will be thrown in too, but that's what we have Friday for. Friday is tech, behavior, society and either we quit there or it's two random things I choose. Weekends are off."

"Shall we commence now?" Thor asked.

"Yes, we shall so we're gonna work on slang," she said before diving into her lesson.



Pepper was still sleeping, when Tony woke up. He got out of bed and got dressed before grabbing a touch pad and heading down to his half of the lab. He decided to look into what Pepper had said. "JARVIS bring up the security footage from last night."

He watched the video as he walked towards the lab. He entered and sat down staring at the touch pad. He moved the images to one of the larger screens in the room. He fast forwarded until h saw Clint. Clint walked outside, shot one of his arrows and climbed up the attached rope. He fast-forwarded, until he saw Matilda walked out. She stood on the heli landing, before raising her arms up and bringing a piece something up to her. He focused in on it. "Concrete?" He watched her step on and ride off on it. The next time he saw them, it was when they walked into the lobby and got in the elevator. They went into the living room.

"What are you watching?" Bruce asked.

They started eating and watching movies before they passed out.

"Is that Tilda and Clint?"

"Tilda?" Tony asked.

"She prefers her name shortened. Plus, I don't try to call her a soul sucking monster."

"Seems like we have a pair of insomniacs."

"And? Bruce asked.

"Oh nothing," Tony said with false innocence.

"Whatever you're thinking, don't."