sam_storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sam_storyteller) wrote2014-11-11 10:45 am
sam_storyteller) wrote2014-11-11 10:45 am
Entry tags:
Selfie With Granddad (MCU; PG)
Title: Selfie With Granddad: The Series
Rating: PG
Also available at AO3.
Part One: Selfie With Granddad
Summary: After the invasion, Natasha’s granddad shows up.
***
"Sweetheart!"
Natasha was tired, and bruised, and bleeding from Chitauri weapons in half a dozen places. But she had a full stomach and Clint seemed to be back on the side of the angels, so life could be worse.
"Sweetheart, I was so worried!"
She saw the older man coming, and she had enough time to hiss to Steve, "Just smile and nod," before she was engulfed in a hug that smelled faintly of old spice and wintergreen.
"Hi, Stan," she said, hugging back. "Hey, are you okay? You get caught up in the invasion?"
"I’m fine! They wouldn’t get near me if they were paid to!" Stan said, peering up at her through his sunglasses. Stan had a way of wearing sunglasses that made him look like he’d stepped out of the late seventies, even when he wore the ones she bought for him from Sunglass Hut last week. "I was worried about you!"
"She’s fine, Stan," Clint said, crossing his arms and grinning at Natasha.
"She better be. I blame you if she isn’t," Stan said, shaking a fist at Clint.
"Easy, buddy," Clint soothed.
"And who’s this?" Stan demanded. Steve was squinting at him curiously. "Aren’t we fancy," he added, gesturing at Steve’s costume. Natasha suppressed a smile.
"Stan, this is Steve, he’s a friend," Natasha said. "Steve, this is my grandfather, Stan."
"Nice to meet you, sir," Steve said, offering his hand. "Your grandfather, huh?" he asked Natasha skeptically.
"Adopted," she said.
"Your adopted grandfather."
"Listen, punk, I got four sons, nine grandsons, and five great-grandsons. If I want a granddaughter I’m entitled," Stan said.
"He’s my neighbor," Natasha explained. "Look, Stan, it’s not safe to be out on the street. Why don’t we give you a ride home."
"On what?" Stan asked, waving a hand at the road, which was covered in debris. "My chess club’s meetin’ in an hour, it’s only a couple’a blocks away."
"The city was just attacked by aliens. I think chess club is cancelled," Steve pointed out.
"Nuts. I didn’t fight my way through world war two just so we could cancel chess club on account’a a couple of lousy aliens," Stan retorted. "You kids today don’t know what it was like!"
Clint snorted. Steve squared his shoulders.
"Of course, sir," he said.
"Better let him go, Cap," Natasha told him.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Stan said, digging in his pocket. He took out a mint, studied it, pressed it into Clint’s hand, and then drew a StarkPhone out of the rest of his pocket debris. "I promised my oldest’s youngest I’d get a picture of you."
"He keeps trying to set me up with the grandsons," Natasha sighed.
"He’s a nice boy! He’s a podiatrist and he’s Jewish! You could do worse!"
"Fine, but get Steve and Clint in the picture," Natasha sighed, dragging them along.
"Crowd in, crowd in," Stan ordered, holding up the phone. "Everybody smile. And — cheese!"
When the photo had been taken, Stan kept his arm around Natasha.
"So...either of these two?" he asked.
"Stan!"
"Just asking. Or are they, you know, together?" He glanced over his shoulder. "The taller one seems kinda..."
Natasha patted his arm. "I’m keeping my options open. I’ll let you know."
"Well, keep my grandson in mind. We breed strong babies!"
She kissed his forehead. "Go play chess. I’ll see you later."
"You two -- hands to yourself unless she starts it!" Stan yelled as he walked away. He pointed his fingers at his eyes, then at Steve in particular.
"What the hell," Steve said. "That is actually weirder than a lot of what happened to me today."
"Stan’s sweet. He’s a janitor at a local high school. He thinks I work for the Gap," she said.
"The Gap."
"We told him what we do. He doesn’t really care," Clint said. "Stan lives in his own very specific reality."
"Hey, if I live to be eighty, I’m going to ignore everything I don’t like, too," Natasha pointed out.
"I already do," Clint said.
"Okay," Steve sighed. "Come on, let’s scram before Stan marries you off."
"Hey, unless you can compete with a Jewish podiatrist..."
"I fought in world war two as well, you know!"
As they wandered towards Stark Tower, still bickering, Stan watched from down the block, shaking his head.
"Kids these days," he sighed.
Part Two: Chutzpah
Summary: Natasha’s granddad moves into Stark Tower.
***
Natasha hadn’t really intended to move into Stark Tower. It was Stan’s fault, she felt.
"Listen, my dear," Stan said, "when a man offers you a rent-free apartment, you don’t say no! You don’t give him anything you don’t want to, but you don’t say no."
"But I like it here," she said. "Besides, who’s going to look after you?"
"Pshaw, like I need looking after."
"Stan," Natasha said.
"I got all my own teeth and I drink a lot of milk," Stan boasted. "I’m fine! You go on, charm that billionaire, I hear he likes redheads."
Natasha smiled. "Well, maybe."
But it gave her an idea, so instead of moving in immediately, she had Tony come to her apartment for tea, to discuss it.
"This is awkward. I’m feeling awkward," Tony said, as he sat at her breakfast nook table. "Why am I here?"
"Just to talk," she said with a sweet smile. "I was glad to hear you came out of surgery all right."
"No you weren’t. You’re not that invested in my life."
"Believe it or not, I like you," she replied, unperturbed. "Do you take sugar in your tea?"
"I take sugar in everything I can get it in."
"I’ll be right back, I just need to borrow some from next door," she said, and before Tony Stark knew what was happening, she was escorting Stan and his sugar bowl into her apartment, while he protested that he bought this sugar with his hard-earned cash and she was using his good will against him.
"Stan, this is Tony," she said, deftly taking the bowl out of his hands and putting it on the tea service. "He’s the one offering me a free apartment."
Stan put his hands on his hips. "So you’re Tony Stark."
Tony looked confused. "Yes. Most of the time. Nearly all of the time."
"You make this phone?" Stan demanded, holding up his StarkPhone.
"Yes?" Stark ventured.
"And you did the hospital thing."
"The hospital thing?"
"The Maria Stark Memorial Cardiac Wing," Natasha supplied.
"Oh. Probably," Tony said.
"I had my pacemaker put in there. Well," Stan considered. "You’re a good boy, Tony."
Tony blinked. "Sorry?"
"You’re a nice boy, and you do nice things. You’re all right," Stan said, and Natasha watched in delight as Tony’s face crumpled and he got out of the chair, hugging Stan tightly.
"Not very hard to impress, is he?" Stan asked, over Tony’s shoulder.
"You’d be surprised," Natasha replied. "Tony, Stan’s the reason I haven’t moved in yet. He lives alone next door and I don’t want to leave him."
Stan gave her a look that told her he knew she was bullshitting, but Tony could be oblivious when he really wanted.
"Is that all?" Tony asked, straightening and stepping back. "Hey, Stan, you want a rent-free apartment in Stark Tower?"
"Does a bear crap in the woods?" Stan asked.
Two weeks later, a team of movers showed up at Natasha’s apartment, loaded up a truck with her belongings and Stan’s, and took them to Stark Tower. When they got there, Stan and Tony had cigars on the helipad.
"He’s a mensch," Stan said, as Natasha helped him unpack. "Your friends, sweetheart, are a very rare breed."
"Yes, I like them," Natasha agreed. "Wait until you meet Thor."
"Big blond fella with the hammer?" Stan beamed. "He hung a couple’a frames for me. I knew all aliens couldn’t be bad."
"You’ll have them all wrapped around your finger in no time," Natasha said.
"Sweetheart, the secret to a good life is to love G-d, give to charity, and get the young folk to do your work for you," Stan confided.
It took Natasha a good ten minutes after she’d left his apartment to realize that she’d probably been a part of Stan’s grand master plan. One had to admire his chutzpah.
Part Three: Taking In Strays
Summary: The Winter Soldier came in through the wrong window, but he got pierogies out of it.
***
The first actual evidence anyone had that the Winter Soldier had returned to the fold was one early evening at Stark Tower. Natasha was coming home from a day spent in an attempt to see if she was the kind of person who liked long walks in the park (no) and had her key card out when she heard a crash from Stan’s side of the floor, and then two voices yelling at each other in Russian.
She burst through Stan’s door with her guns out, taking in the scene quickly. There was the dining table with two bowls on it, a couple of cheap beers, the unmistakable scent of Stan’s pierogies in the air —
And Stan himself, standing at the kitchen counter, elbow-deep in suds, holding the Winter Soldier’s head under the tap.
"It’s cold, you son of a whore!" The Soldier yelped in Russian.
"I’ll was your mouth out next," Stan yelled, fetching up a wooden spoon from the counter and cracking the Soldier over the head with it. "Cold kills the lice!"
"I don’t have lice! Ow!"
"Don’t be such a child."
"He has a point," Natasha felt compelled to say. Stan looked up, delight creasing his face. The Soldier jerked out of his grip and turned, knife at the ready. Natasha waggled her guns. Slowly, he set the knife down.
"Well, maybe you can do something with him," Stan said disgustedly. "I assume he belongs to you."
"Not exactly," she admitted, "but I know a guy who’d like to see him." She looked at the table again. "Did you feed him pierogies?"
"None of you damn kids eat enough! Of course I fed him, look at him."
"Where did you find him?"
"He came in through the window! What was I supposed to do?"
"Call me, Stan," Natasha said patiently. "When someone comes in through the window in your apartment, eighty storeys up, wearing knives, what you are supposed to do is call me."
"Aw, nuts," Stan said, waving a hand dismissively. "Do I look like I needed your help?"
Natasha had to admit he didn’t. "You should still call me."
"Fine! You take him, he needs bathing."
Winter Soldier looked faintly insulted. Natasha shrugged.
"You gonna gut me if I put the guns away?" she asked.
"No," Soldier said sullenly. "M’lookin’ for Rogers. He said he’d take me to him."
"Let me guess," she said, holstering the guns. "He said he’d take you to him if you had a bowl of pierogies first."
"He’s skin and bones!" Stan insisted.
"Good pierogies," Soldier admitted.
"Thank you, Stan, for looking after him," Natasha said. "Please don’t ever hit him with a wooden spoon again."
"Yeah, yeah," Stan rolled his eyes. "You and Barton comin’ to bridge tonight?"
"I’ll let you know," Natasha said, hustling the Soldier towards the door.
"Don’t bring that one along unless he’s really good!" Stan called after them. "He might have lice!"
"I don’t have lice!" Soldier roared back, and Natasha gave him a sharp elbow to the solar plexus. He oofed softly and looked at her, wounded.
"I’m not going to fall for your kicked-puppy face any more than Stan did," she told him calmly. "Save it for Rogers, he’s a sucker for you anyway."
"I think I preferred the old guy," he muttered.
"Yeah, well, hang around here and you’ll see plenty of him. Come on, let’s pretty you up for the Captain."
Rating: PG
Also available at AO3.
Part One: Selfie With Granddad
Summary: After the invasion, Natasha’s granddad shows up.
***
"Sweetheart!"
Natasha was tired, and bruised, and bleeding from Chitauri weapons in half a dozen places. But she had a full stomach and Clint seemed to be back on the side of the angels, so life could be worse.
"Sweetheart, I was so worried!"
She saw the older man coming, and she had enough time to hiss to Steve, "Just smile and nod," before she was engulfed in a hug that smelled faintly of old spice and wintergreen.
"Hi, Stan," she said, hugging back. "Hey, are you okay? You get caught up in the invasion?"
"I’m fine! They wouldn’t get near me if they were paid to!" Stan said, peering up at her through his sunglasses. Stan had a way of wearing sunglasses that made him look like he’d stepped out of the late seventies, even when he wore the ones she bought for him from Sunglass Hut last week. "I was worried about you!"
"She’s fine, Stan," Clint said, crossing his arms and grinning at Natasha.
"She better be. I blame you if she isn’t," Stan said, shaking a fist at Clint.
"Easy, buddy," Clint soothed.
"And who’s this?" Stan demanded. Steve was squinting at him curiously. "Aren’t we fancy," he added, gesturing at Steve’s costume. Natasha suppressed a smile.
"Stan, this is Steve, he’s a friend," Natasha said. "Steve, this is my grandfather, Stan."
"Nice to meet you, sir," Steve said, offering his hand. "Your grandfather, huh?" he asked Natasha skeptically.
"Adopted," she said.
"Your adopted grandfather."
"Listen, punk, I got four sons, nine grandsons, and five great-grandsons. If I want a granddaughter I’m entitled," Stan said.
"He’s my neighbor," Natasha explained. "Look, Stan, it’s not safe to be out on the street. Why don’t we give you a ride home."
"On what?" Stan asked, waving a hand at the road, which was covered in debris. "My chess club’s meetin’ in an hour, it’s only a couple’a blocks away."
"The city was just attacked by aliens. I think chess club is cancelled," Steve pointed out.
"Nuts. I didn’t fight my way through world war two just so we could cancel chess club on account’a a couple of lousy aliens," Stan retorted. "You kids today don’t know what it was like!"
Clint snorted. Steve squared his shoulders.
"Of course, sir," he said.
"Better let him go, Cap," Natasha told him.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Stan said, digging in his pocket. He took out a mint, studied it, pressed it into Clint’s hand, and then drew a StarkPhone out of the rest of his pocket debris. "I promised my oldest’s youngest I’d get a picture of you."
"He keeps trying to set me up with the grandsons," Natasha sighed.
"He’s a nice boy! He’s a podiatrist and he’s Jewish! You could do worse!"
"Fine, but get Steve and Clint in the picture," Natasha sighed, dragging them along.
"Crowd in, crowd in," Stan ordered, holding up the phone. "Everybody smile. And — cheese!"
When the photo had been taken, Stan kept his arm around Natasha.
"So...either of these two?" he asked.
"Stan!"
"Just asking. Or are they, you know, together?" He glanced over his shoulder. "The taller one seems kinda..."
Natasha patted his arm. "I’m keeping my options open. I’ll let you know."
"Well, keep my grandson in mind. We breed strong babies!"
She kissed his forehead. "Go play chess. I’ll see you later."
"You two -- hands to yourself unless she starts it!" Stan yelled as he walked away. He pointed his fingers at his eyes, then at Steve in particular.
"What the hell," Steve said. "That is actually weirder than a lot of what happened to me today."
"Stan’s sweet. He’s a janitor at a local high school. He thinks I work for the Gap," she said.
"The Gap."
"We told him what we do. He doesn’t really care," Clint said. "Stan lives in his own very specific reality."
"Hey, if I live to be eighty, I’m going to ignore everything I don’t like, too," Natasha pointed out.
"I already do," Clint said.
"Okay," Steve sighed. "Come on, let’s scram before Stan marries you off."
"Hey, unless you can compete with a Jewish podiatrist..."
"I fought in world war two as well, you know!"
As they wandered towards Stark Tower, still bickering, Stan watched from down the block, shaking his head.
"Kids these days," he sighed.
Part Two: Chutzpah
Summary: Natasha’s granddad moves into Stark Tower.
***
Natasha hadn’t really intended to move into Stark Tower. It was Stan’s fault, she felt.
"Listen, my dear," Stan said, "when a man offers you a rent-free apartment, you don’t say no! You don’t give him anything you don’t want to, but you don’t say no."
"But I like it here," she said. "Besides, who’s going to look after you?"
"Pshaw, like I need looking after."
"Stan," Natasha said.
"I got all my own teeth and I drink a lot of milk," Stan boasted. "I’m fine! You go on, charm that billionaire, I hear he likes redheads."
Natasha smiled. "Well, maybe."
But it gave her an idea, so instead of moving in immediately, she had Tony come to her apartment for tea, to discuss it.
"This is awkward. I’m feeling awkward," Tony said, as he sat at her breakfast nook table. "Why am I here?"
"Just to talk," she said with a sweet smile. "I was glad to hear you came out of surgery all right."
"No you weren’t. You’re not that invested in my life."
"Believe it or not, I like you," she replied, unperturbed. "Do you take sugar in your tea?"
"I take sugar in everything I can get it in."
"I’ll be right back, I just need to borrow some from next door," she said, and before Tony Stark knew what was happening, she was escorting Stan and his sugar bowl into her apartment, while he protested that he bought this sugar with his hard-earned cash and she was using his good will against him.
"Stan, this is Tony," she said, deftly taking the bowl out of his hands and putting it on the tea service. "He’s the one offering me a free apartment."
Stan put his hands on his hips. "So you’re Tony Stark."
Tony looked confused. "Yes. Most of the time. Nearly all of the time."
"You make this phone?" Stan demanded, holding up his StarkPhone.
"Yes?" Stark ventured.
"And you did the hospital thing."
"The hospital thing?"
"The Maria Stark Memorial Cardiac Wing," Natasha supplied.
"Oh. Probably," Tony said.
"I had my pacemaker put in there. Well," Stan considered. "You’re a good boy, Tony."
Tony blinked. "Sorry?"
"You’re a nice boy, and you do nice things. You’re all right," Stan said, and Natasha watched in delight as Tony’s face crumpled and he got out of the chair, hugging Stan tightly.
"Not very hard to impress, is he?" Stan asked, over Tony’s shoulder.
"You’d be surprised," Natasha replied. "Tony, Stan’s the reason I haven’t moved in yet. He lives alone next door and I don’t want to leave him."
Stan gave her a look that told her he knew she was bullshitting, but Tony could be oblivious when he really wanted.
"Is that all?" Tony asked, straightening and stepping back. "Hey, Stan, you want a rent-free apartment in Stark Tower?"
"Does a bear crap in the woods?" Stan asked.
Two weeks later, a team of movers showed up at Natasha’s apartment, loaded up a truck with her belongings and Stan’s, and took them to Stark Tower. When they got there, Stan and Tony had cigars on the helipad.
"He’s a mensch," Stan said, as Natasha helped him unpack. "Your friends, sweetheart, are a very rare breed."
"Yes, I like them," Natasha agreed. "Wait until you meet Thor."
"Big blond fella with the hammer?" Stan beamed. "He hung a couple’a frames for me. I knew all aliens couldn’t be bad."
"You’ll have them all wrapped around your finger in no time," Natasha said.
"Sweetheart, the secret to a good life is to love G-d, give to charity, and get the young folk to do your work for you," Stan confided.
It took Natasha a good ten minutes after she’d left his apartment to realize that she’d probably been a part of Stan’s grand master plan. One had to admire his chutzpah.
Part Three: Taking In Strays
Summary: The Winter Soldier came in through the wrong window, but he got pierogies out of it.
***
The first actual evidence anyone had that the Winter Soldier had returned to the fold was one early evening at Stark Tower. Natasha was coming home from a day spent in an attempt to see if she was the kind of person who liked long walks in the park (no) and had her key card out when she heard a crash from Stan’s side of the floor, and then two voices yelling at each other in Russian.
She burst through Stan’s door with her guns out, taking in the scene quickly. There was the dining table with two bowls on it, a couple of cheap beers, the unmistakable scent of Stan’s pierogies in the air —
And Stan himself, standing at the kitchen counter, elbow-deep in suds, holding the Winter Soldier’s head under the tap.
"It’s cold, you son of a whore!" The Soldier yelped in Russian.
"I’ll was your mouth out next," Stan yelled, fetching up a wooden spoon from the counter and cracking the Soldier over the head with it. "Cold kills the lice!"
"I don’t have lice! Ow!"
"Don’t be such a child."
"He has a point," Natasha felt compelled to say. Stan looked up, delight creasing his face. The Soldier jerked out of his grip and turned, knife at the ready. Natasha waggled her guns. Slowly, he set the knife down.
"Well, maybe you can do something with him," Stan said disgustedly. "I assume he belongs to you."
"Not exactly," she admitted, "but I know a guy who’d like to see him." She looked at the table again. "Did you feed him pierogies?"
"None of you damn kids eat enough! Of course I fed him, look at him."
"Where did you find him?"
"He came in through the window! What was I supposed to do?"
"Call me, Stan," Natasha said patiently. "When someone comes in through the window in your apartment, eighty storeys up, wearing knives, what you are supposed to do is call me."
"Aw, nuts," Stan said, waving a hand dismissively. "Do I look like I needed your help?"
Natasha had to admit he didn’t. "You should still call me."
"Fine! You take him, he needs bathing."
Winter Soldier looked faintly insulted. Natasha shrugged.
"You gonna gut me if I put the guns away?" she asked.
"No," Soldier said sullenly. "M’lookin’ for Rogers. He said he’d take me to him."
"Let me guess," she said, holstering the guns. "He said he’d take you to him if you had a bowl of pierogies first."
"He’s skin and bones!" Stan insisted.
"Good pierogies," Soldier admitted.
"Thank you, Stan, for looking after him," Natasha said. "Please don’t ever hit him with a wooden spoon again."
"Yeah, yeah," Stan rolled his eyes. "You and Barton comin’ to bridge tonight?"
"I’ll let you know," Natasha said, hustling the Soldier towards the door.
"Don’t bring that one along unless he’s really good!" Stan called after them. "He might have lice!"
"I don’t have lice!" Soldier roared back, and Natasha gave him a sharp elbow to the solar plexus. He oofed softly and looked at her, wounded.
"I’m not going to fall for your kicked-puppy face any more than Stan did," she told him calmly. "Save it for Rogers, he’s a sucker for you anyway."
"I think I preferred the old guy," he muttered.
"Yeah, well, hang around here and you’ll see plenty of him. Come on, let’s pretty you up for the Captain."
no subject
"Call me, Stan," Natasha said patiently. "When someone comes in through the window in your apartment, eighty storeys up, wearing knives, what you are supposed to do is call me."
Well done!