Everything had calmed down when we were back upstairs apart from Clint who sulked in the corner. We all gave our orders to Nat and just sat chatting whilst we waited for it to arrive.

I had gone for the Cannelloni, Peter and a few of the others going for pizza or Arancini, in Nat’s case.

I really enjoyed nights like this, all of us sat together just enjoying good food and each other's company. It wasn’t often everyone was together like this, excluding Bruce and Thor, usually a few people were on missions or out on business for SHIELD.

Just as I was digging into my food, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, hurriedly putting everything down as I fished it out before answering.

“Hello?”

“Alright Alex?” my mum’s voice chimed, and I felt the smile split across my face.

“Alright mum, you, okay?” I stirred my food absentmindedly as I talked to her, knowing it must be pretty late for them.

“Yeah, yeah. What’ve you been up to? You been with Tony today?” my eyes travelled to the man in question who gave me a questioning look.

“Yeah, we’ve been hanging out, designing stuff, the usual” I mouthed ‘mum’ and he nodded in realisation, gesturing to himself, and making a phone hand sign and I shook my head, giving a playful wink. “What have you been doing?”

“Just working, I’ve just come back from walking the dog”

“Walking the dog? Isn’t it like ten over there?” she brushed me off, telling me she was a grown woman as I shook my head in amusement.

“How about that boy you were telling us about?” I felt Peter straighten next to me, knowing he was listening with his supersonic hearing. “What was his name?” she wondered aloud, and I could feel my face getting hot.

“You mean Peter?” I offered quietly and she made a sound of confirmation “what about him?”

“Well, how are things between you two? I thought you fancied him?”

“Mum!” I hissed “he’s within hearing distance” Peter only smiled, ducking his head as he pretended to be interested in his food, Sam nudging him whilst wiggling his eyebrows.

“Put us on facetime, we can show him your baby pictures” I sank in my seat, my palm resting against my head at her teasing.

“He definitely doesn’t want to see my baby pictures”

“I definitely do” I shot him a look to which he chuckled at.

“Let me talk to him”

“I’ll talk to your mom” Sam volunteered, and I protested before the phone was stolen from my hand by Clint, who put her on speakerphone.

“Hello?”

“Mrs Greene? You’re on speakerphone” my mum began chatting to everyone with no problem as I died inside, covering my bright red face with my hands as I heard yet another embarrassing story being told.

“Oh Alex, tell them about when you painted those girls’ nails in primary school” heads turned my way.

“Yeah Alex, tell us” Nat smirked, clearly, they were enjoying this far too much.

“I don’t think they want to hear it”

“We definitely want to hear it”

“Okay basically when I was in year 4 Ish” a few blank faces “about 9,” I clarified, “there was an enterprise fare ran by the year 6’s who were painting peoples nails, so I bought in some nail polish for them to use,” I felt the snickers bubbling up inside of me as I remembered the tale “when I got it back, I decided, hey, why don’t I do the same thing for free. So, I painted some nails, I got caught and my best mate was so stressed out for me that she threw up banana all over the classroom carpet.”

I chuckled at the memory fondly, a couple of laughs and smiled travelled around the room.

“troublemaker” my mum commented, and I could distantly hear my dad asking who she was talking to “Alex and her friends”

“You mean the Avengers,” he said, obviously closer to the phone “alright Poppins, how's it hanging?”

“Yeah alright, how’s Cas?”

“usual” I hummed, thought as much

“you want to talk to him?”

“it’s alright, isn’t he supposed to be in bed by now?”

“Oh shit” I chuckled, leaning forward on my elbows as my mum took the phone back, telling me that she’d let us get on.

“Alright, I’ll talk to you later”

“Alright bye guys, love you”

“Love you too” multiple voices joined mine in saying goodbye and I could hear her laughing before she hung up, my smile softening as my phone was passed back.

“So, you talked to your mum about Peter? Must be pretty serious” Steve said, smiling at my embarrassment.

“My mum likes to exaggerate whenever the word ‘boy’ is introduced into my life”

“it's a shame we didn’t get to see those baby pictures” I chuckled at this, shaking my head.

“No, it’s not, Cas’s are way better. He was such a chunker”

“For someone that did an English A-level, you sure have trouble speaking it” Tony stated, and I shrugged, swallowing my mouthful of pasta.

“What can I say? It’s the Bristolian in me”

“Bye guys, see you later” I waved as Peter and I made our way towards the lift, Tony tailing us as the others called after us.

“you’re both sure you don’t want Happy to drop you home? He wouldn’t mind.”

He definitely would.

“I’ll swing her home and then head to mine. We’ll be okay” Peter reassured, throwing his arm over my shoulder
“won’t we, Greene?”

I mouthed ‘help me’ and Tony snorted at us.

“Alright, Jarvis will tell me when you’re home so careful” I gave a mock salute and the doors closed.