Chapter Text
“Wait, what’s this for again? Like why do we have to do this?” y/n questioned as two of the crew members made attempts to help her hook the mic up to her clothes.
“Hi, I’m y/n l/n, I work as a technician of sorts for the Avengers…wait I’m not a technician,” y/n chuckled awkwardly, turning to face the crew bundled up behind the camera, “Can we start that over again? No? M’kay, hi, I’m a hacker with cool laser blasters occasionally.”
“They said we need people to relate to us more,” Clint responded, adjusting his mic pack which had been concealed under his clothing, “Whatever that means.”
“Who’s they?” y/n questioned, her brows furrowing in confusion.
“I don’t know,” Clint mumbled, shrugging as he looked through the fridge for a carton of juice.
“I’m Clint Barton, I used to work for SHIELD, I’m a highly trained spy, but I used to work for the circus, and I have really great aim,” Clint smiled proudly into the camera.
“This isn’t a job interview, Clint!” Natasha’s voice was heard off-screen as Clint looked away from the screen and towards somebody behind the camera.
“Yeah, I knew that.”
“Oh, okay,” y/n shrugged, turning to the sound guys who were having trouble hooking her mic pack to her clothes, “Would it be better if I found one of the earring mics and hooked that up to the cameras or whatever you guys are doing? I feel like it would be easier for all of us here.”
“If we’re doing a reality show, what would our opening scene even be?” Natasha questioned, making her way to the pair, taking a bite from an apple she snatched off the fruit bowl on the counter.
“I’m Natalie Rushman, and the less you know about me, the better…wait, I can’t lie on this? If you wanted me to be honest, you should’ve hooked me up to a polygraph,” the redhead huffed, turning her attention back to the camera, “I’m Natasha Romanoff and my job’s basically being secretive.”
“This, I suppose?” Loki shrugged, appearing out of thin air on the kitchen counter in a green light.
“Can you stop doing that, that’s freaky,” Clint exclaimed, nearly spilling his orange juice on the raven-haired god.
“I’m Loki of Asgard—yes, the same Loki from New York, and I apologize for that. Was that convincing enough for you lot? No?” Loki huffed, frustrated at the producers and the Avengers’ public relations agent, “Okay, well, I’m on Midgard to assist on a few of the Avengers’ missions to make up for the damages I caused, so nobody has to worry about another alien army.”
“I feel like this would make a dumb introduction scene,” y/n muttered.
“I think this is something we all have to go along with, y/n,” Steve insisted, a nervous smile on his face as he adjusted the mic hooked to the collar of his shirt. All this reality TV stuff heavily reminded him of his time parading around in the bright blue costume in the 40s.
“Really? You’re going along with this too?” Natasha questioned, staring at Steve in disbelief as she too was getting her mic pack adjusted like the others in the room.
“How do I do this? Oh, I just introduce myself?” Steve questioned, turning to one of the producers, “I’m Steve Rogers, you guys probably know me as Captain America, and I like to go out on runs in the morning.”
“This must be serious if Cap’s agreeing to go along with this, right, Buck?” Sam questioned, turning to Bucky who stood next to him in the doorway.
“I still don’t like this,” Bucky muttered quietly, his voice barely audible to the cameras as he and Sam didn’t have their microphones hooked to them.
“I don’t recall you enjoying anything we were meant to partake in as a team,” Loki chuckled as Bucky only gave a small nod in response.
“Hi, I’m Sam Wilson, former air force, some people call me the Falcon—it’s a pretty cool superhero name—and when I’m not working with the Avengers, I work with the VA to help counsel some of our veterans who suffer from PTSD,” Sam smiled proudly into the camera, proud of what he’s done for people.
“I’m James Buchanan Barnes, people here just call me Bucky and some other nicknames I never approved of—please, don’t do the same thing they do, and I’m over a hundred years old,” Bucky grinned into the camera.
“Are we all just going to show up in the kitchen one by one?” Clint chuckled as Sam and Bucky made their way onto the chairs surrounding the table.
“I guess so,” Natasha chuckled, “Also, didn’t Tony call us all in here? Where the hell is Stark?”
“Right here,” Tony smirked proudly, walking into the room and theatrically pulling his shades away from his face, then looking around the room in disappointment, “Damn it, not everyone’s here? My entrance was wasted.”
“Serves you right for trying to rig us with mics in the middle of the day,” y/n mumbled to herself, making her way towards the counter where Loki seated himself onto.
“I’m not trying to rig you guys with—didn’t I already explain this to you?” Tony huffed, his tone similar to that of an exasperated father, worn out from caring for his children—in this case, those children were the Avengers.
“You know who I am,” Tony winked into the camera, “Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, and Iron Man.”
“What? Did we ruin your entrance?” Wanda chuckled, her accent faint, almost as though to imitate something her late brother would say. Wanda walked into the kitchen arm-in-arm with Vision who chuckled faintly at Wanda’s taunts.
“Hi, I’m Wanda Maximoff, I’m Sokovian, and y/n says I do weird and cool things with my hands,” Wanda shrugged, leaning into Vision’s side. The pair were allowed to do their confessionals together as Vision wasn’t technically human and Wanda insisted she should be there to guide their confessionals—she knew Vision was intelligent enough to do these on his own, but she wanted to have him around for her confessionals.
“I’m the Vision, Wanda over here and a few other Avengers call me ‘Vis’ at times, and I don’t think there’s much I can tell you about me. I haven’t been on this planet long,” Vision shrugged, earning a small chuckle from Wanda.
“As a matter of fact, yeah, you did,” Tony scoffed, seemingly annoyed at the pair, “Where the hell is Banner?”
“I saw him upstairs at the lab,” y/n explained.
“And you didn’t think that maybe you should call him down here?”
“I told him to come down. It’s not my fault he’s busy.”
“You guys don’t really need to argue, I’m right here,” Bruce laughed, walking into the room, still in his lab coat.
“I’m Bruce Banner, I’m a doctor, and some people think I have bad anger issues, which is fair. I do have a tendency to turn green and smash things when I’m mad,” Bruce smiled bashfully, “Tony said to share an interesting fact about me, so I have seven PhDs.”
“Why do I feel like we’re missing somebody?” Sam questioned, peering around the room, looking through the people in the room.
“Rhodey’s out due to him having to work with the military,” Tony explained.
“No, we’re definitely missing somebody,” Sam shook his head again, trying to recount who else lived in the Avengers compound.
“Well, my oaf of a brother’s nowhere to be seen, as usual,” Loki perked up at the idea of humiliating Thor, earning an elbow to the ribs, courtesy of y/n.
“Behave,” y/n warned him.
“Must you keep doing that, brother?” Thor’s booming voice echoed off the walls of the room as he entered the kitchen, confused at the two of the crew members approaching him with a mic pack.
“Oh, Thor, let them strap the mic on you,” Bruce, who’d been getting his mic adjusted, told Thor, earning a nod from the god.
“I am Thor of Asgard, but of course, a lot of Midgardians know me already for my heroic…heroism whenever the time comes to save the world,” Thor smiled brightly into the camera. One could swear there was a quiet thud in the background of this recording, almost as though somebody fainted.
“Okay, we’re all here. To anyone who isn’t wearing a mic, please do, and I guess we start filming the show in a few minutes,” Tony spoke clasping his hands together, “Which should be plenty of time for me to leave this room and redo my entrance.
“Actually, we started rolling a while ago, is that okay?” one of the producers questioned, earning a small frown from the billionaire.
“Oh. That works too,” Tony mumbled, disappointed that he couldn’t make another grand entrance for the cameras when they started rolling.
“We’re doing this to show another side to the Avengers,” Sam explained, seemingly excited for the opportunity to showcase what the Avengers are like as a unit.
“We need people to trust us and to do that, we decided to show everybody what we’re like when we’re not out saving the world, or doing anything major,” Steve spoke sternly into the camera, a smile still on his face.
“We’re doing this because we feel like people will really be able to connect and relate with at least one member on the team,” Natasha gave a warm—pretty fake—smile into the camera.
“I’m supposed to say something about the show? Well, what did Nat say?” y/n questioned, her brows furrowing before she scoffed, “She said that? Right, because there’s nothing more relatable than two literal gods, a telekinetic, an android, two fossils people call super soldiers, a military man with these really cool wings, a billionaire, a quiet scientist with severe anger issues, and a cool hacker.
“Why are we in the kitchen, again?” Sam questioned, turning to Tony with a confused expression painted on his face
“We’re going to have lunch. Together. As a team,” Tony smiled, confusing everybody else in the room. There was never a time the team, meaning everyone collectively, ate together in the compound. To them, it was unheard of.
Sure, there were times when the team would go out to restaurants as a whole, but those meals never seemed to work out too well. Everyone else just opted to break off into smaller groups or pairs whenever it came to shared meals.
“But…why?” Bucky’s brows furrowed.
“Maybe because we’re taping the first episode of the show?” Tony drew out his tone, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Last I checked, this was a reality show, Stark. You can’t script a get-together,” Natasha pointed out as Tony rolled his eyes in annoyance.
“Yeah, but I can call team lunches, can’t I?”
“Not when there’s no food,” y/n huffed, making her way onto one of the seats surrounding the big table.
“I don’t like lunches with the team,” Bucky spoke into the mic, a calculating expression on his face, “I don’t have anything against anybody on the team, but whenever we have a meal together, it just feels like there are too many people.”
“No, I have food for you guys to eat,” Tony scoffed, “FRIDAY, bring in the food.”
At that command, a barrage of shorter flat-headed robots rolled into the room, all of them having trays of food on top of them. The mood in the room changed up quickly at the sight of the food. For a unit of powerful and impactful individuals, swaying them with food was pretty easy.
“Nothing about this Meet the Robinsons shit is relatable, let’s be honest here,” Clint spoke into the camera, scoffing at the fact that he had to do these confessionals at the end of the day. Seriously, weren’t confessionals filmed when taping for the show was wrapped up?
“You have robots here to deliver us…takeout?” Sam questioned, watching as the robots made their way to the table as a slightly taller robot began setting the table up for their meal.
“Yes, and?”
“You know, you could’ve just taken us to a restaurant if you wanted to,” Sam chuckled, “Not that I’m complaining.”
“You guys can never decide on what to eat and end up taking forever. So, I got takeout from almost any restaurant you could think of,” Tony smirked, clearly pleased with himself at how he got everyone to come to a compromise without even discussing food.
“So, we shall feast on the speedy meals,” Thor grinned, eyes growing wide in excitement at the sight of all the food being laid out onto the dining table.
“Brother, I believe the term is ‘fast food’ rather than speedy meals. You really must catch yourself up on these Midgardian terms rather than making yourself look like a fool,” Loki scoffed, moving off the counter, dragging y/n with him onto some seats at the table.
“Oh, and you’re so well-versed in Midgardian culture, aren’t you, brother?” Thor smirked, almost as though to challenge Loki.
“Considering I have nothing better to do on this planet than learning about their language and slang, yes, brother. I’d like to consider myself an expert of sorts when it comes to the terms of Midgard,” Loki grinned.
“He has Sam, Bucky, y/n, and I to thank for that,” Wanda smiled proudly into the camera, “I don’t know how, but we found a way to form this friend group, I guess. It’s kind of been our group’s main thing. y/n taught me how being an Avenger works, we taught Vis more about what it means to be human, Sam brought Bucky into our group so we could help him get reacquainted with times, and we still aren’t sure how Loki was thrown into the mix, but it’s pretty fun.”
“Can you guys stop arguing for one second? I’m trying to scout out the food,” y/n huffed, getting up from her seat and glaring at the Asgardian gods.
“My apologies,” both of the Odinsons muttered as Thor made his way into a seat too with Loki relaxing into his chair, not making any other attempts to challenge Thor to a battle of wits.
The Avengers began getting into their respective seats—of course, they didn’t exactly have specific seats meant for them as dining as a group was a new dynamic for them, but they didn’t take long to settle into seats near the people they enjoyed communicating with—as the food was set in the center of the table.
The moment everyone was seated at the table, everything just clicked. In a way, it was a sense of family and domesticity for a team of people who lacked most of that growing up. It was a welcome change; to just eat lunch together as a unit, conversing with one another, bringing up whatever topics they wished to bring up
“I know we don’t eat lunch together often, but I think this is nice,” Steve admitted, a small smile finding its way to the blond’s face.
“I know, look at us, getting along for once,” Bruce chuckled as he began to take bites out from his food.
“I mean, I don’t think we’d fight as often if two leader figures could stop arguing for once,” Clint muttered, glaring at both Steve and Tony jokingly.
“It was one time, guys,” Tony rolled his eyes.
“It wasn’t just one time. You guys bicker all the time, and the one time you’re talking about is what happened with the accords. You call that one time, we call that the group getting a divorce,” y/n shook her head at the memory of the accords. Luckily for her, she wasn’t a superpowered person who did amazing things. No. At the time, the world only knew her to be a hacker; the guy in the chair.
“Yes, but we’re all back together now, aren’t we?”
“To be fair, it took a universal threat for the team to get back together,” Loki chimed in, a sly grin making its way to his face. He knew much about the accords as the group he was adopted into—Sam, Bucky, y/n, Vision, and Wanda—did their best to explain the entire history of the team to him so he wouldn’t feel alienated. It gave him a bit of an ego at times.
“Whose idea was it to give Reindeer Games all this information?” Tony huffed, tired of the god chiming in just to smite whoever he was interrupting.
“It could’ve been anybody here,” Wanda shrugged, making eye contact with Sam and y/n who sat parallel to her almost as though to tell them to keep quiet about the situation.
“There’s a lot of people on the team, Stark. Anybody could have told Loki about Germany,” Sam chimed in, holding in a chuckle.
“That or he checked the internet,” y/n coughed out as all eyes turned to her, “Please, your fight or argument or whatever was all over the internet. It’s how I felt like I was in the loop of things without going out and fighting Nat or Tony.”
“I was the one who put it all on the internet,” y/n admitted with a shrug, “I was live-streaming the whole thing from this anonymous account from a cloaked Quinjet. Not sure if that is something I was supposed to do or admit to, but I did it.”
“I doubt my brother knows how to use this interweb—”
“Internet,” y/n cut Thor off.
“Yes, well, believe it or not, I can be tech-savvy too, brother,” Loki scoffed, pulling out a cellphone and browsing the web for the video of the Avengers in Germany, “See? I found it all on my own.”
“He has me to thank for that,” Vision claimed, proud of how he just knew how to work any machine. There were times when he was able to help out both y/n and Bruce in the lab whenever they were in need of advice or guidance.
“I must say, though, I’m proud of you for adapting so well to Midgard,” Thor gave Loki a proud smile as the brunet’s defenses fell for a second at the genuine expression on Thor’s face.
“Thank you,” Loki mumbled, poking away at his food with his fork.
“You know Thor’s actually trying with you, right?” y/n whispered, leaning over Loki’s shoulder, “Wanda can read minds and she says so too.”
“Even if I do end up getting along with Thor, what happens then?” Loki questioned as quietly as he could so he wouldn’t need to draw the attention of the others. Before responding, y/n slipped her hand under the table, taking Loki’s hand in hers, placing a device the size of a button in his hand, and shutting his fingers tightly around the device before squeezing an identical device she held in her hands.
“Before you ask me anything, it’s a device that shuts down the mic as long as you’re keeping pressure on it. I don’t want anybody on TV hearing this conversation,” y/n explained, earning a nod from Loki, “But dude, don’t you want that kind of stability in your life? Adopted or not, Thor’s the only family you have left, and it’s obvious that he still cares about you as a brother.
“That’s fair, but who am I without the whole rivalry with Thor? Without the banter?”
“You’ll literally still be Loki, one of the cool kids,” y/n winked, motioning towards Wanda, Bucky, Sam, and Vision, the other people in their group, “So, yeah, I think you should make up with Thor, new year, new you and all that shit.”
“y/n, we’re in the middle of the year,” Loki chuckled, earning a shrug from the hacker.
“And that’s your excuse for why you won’t make amends with Thor?”
“Well, no, but—”
“See? Problem solved,” y/n grinned proudly as Wanda chuckled, most likely using her abilities to listen in on the two.
Maybe whispering wasn’t such a good idea as both Loki and y/n were probably heard by Steve, Bucky, and Wanda as they were all enhanced. Wanda probably told Vision, based on the way he stared at them, Bucky obviously told Sam based on the way both men sent smiles their way, and Steve…well, he didn’t seem to be doing anything about it.
“Anything funny you wanna share, Wanda?” Tony questioned jokingly as Wanda’s eyes grew wide like a deer caught in headlights. Identically to a student who’d gotten caught talking to their seatmate, Wanda’s lips pursed as she shook her head.
“Any interaction between y/n and anybody’s automatically hilarious for me,” Wanda giggled, earning a nod from Vision.
“She just makes these hilarious, uncalled for one-liners or remarks whenever you converse with her,” Vision explained, a small grin of amusement on his face.
Slowly, the others started leaving the table, stuffed with fast food, to return to whatever it was they were doing. Before Tony could get up and leave, though, he was stopped by Bucky.
“If we wanted to leave the compound, would the camera crew have to follow us around?” Bucky questioned, turning to look over to Tony.
“Well, yeah. There are already some crew members designated to follow you guys,” Tony explained, earning a nod from Bucky as he tried to process that information.
“This reality TV shit feels weird,” y/n mumbled, earning a nod from both Sam and Bucky.
“When I was younger, I wanted to be on camera and act,” Wanda confessed, earning a nod of encouragement from y/n, “I don’t think this is what I had in mind.”
“At least we’re interesting, though,” y/n smirked as Bucky broke out in a fit of loud laughter.
“So, you think the cameras are here because we’re interesting?”
“Yeah, duh.”
“I still am not in favor of this idea,” Loki scoffed, “Seriously, I thought reality shows involved scripted plotlines and overacted fights.”
“Shut up, you know you love watching the Kardashians with me,” y/n frowned, earning a chuckle from everyone else in the room, “Speaking of, movie night later?”
“Why?” Wanda questioned, “Didn’t we watch after the mission the other day?”
“Yeah, but if we have another movie night, they can’t record us or the due to copyright reasons,” y/n shrugged as laughter from even the crew echoed off the walls of the kitchen. y/n had no idea why they found it amusing that she was trying to sabotage the whole project—at least for the parts of the show where she was involved.
“Why are you so against this whole thing? You’re already trying to sabotage the show and we’re at least ten minutes into the show after editing,” Sam questioned, genuinely concerned at why y/n was trying too hard to avoid having to appear on TV, something she often joked about.
“I’m introverted?”
“That’s not true,” Wanda shook her head.
“I don’t know, it kind of feels like an invasion of privacy when you think about it. Also, what if people don’t end up liking who we actually are,” y/n scoffed, a bitter reminder of the accords embedding itself in her head, “And what if they make another rule of reform. I don’t want another clause added to my contract just so the government can control whatever skills I have. My brain’s too complex to be put in the hands of the government.”
“I don’t think that’s how the accords worked when applied to people with your skill set,” Sam’s brows furrowed, “Wait, the accords applied to you?”
“y/n doesn’t go out in combat much, she stays behind the scenes more, so finding out the accords applied to her too’s pretty heartbreaking to me,” Sam frowned into the camera, sympathy for the woman evident in his voice, “I know y/n’s capable of a lot, but having her tied to the Accords is terrible.”
“It did, for some time. The government thought it would be great to put my hacking skills to use, which nearly bordered on the whole free will thing because I was threatened with arrest whenever I didn’t hack what the government wanted me to,” y/n explained, “Then, I got a lawyer to somehow sever whatever agreement there was between me and the government, then I took a website designer job for a while, so yeah, the accords aren’t fair and I’m scared that if any of us fuck up at being the Real Housewives of the Avengers Compound, we’re fucked.”
“I feel like the time of the Accords was terrible for us all. It was the downfall of the team as a unit. Now, after the shit that went down with Thanos, I feel like the team is trying to mend that, but I do feel like we never really addressed it, you know?” y/n frowned, tears forming in her eyes, “When the Accords came into effect, I really felt like I was having my family torn away from me. I just felt really guilty about not being able to do much. I mean I did as much as I could to throw them off the others’ scent, but that was all I could do.”
“I don’t think they can bring back the Sokovia accords,” Vision chimed in, “For starters, we’ve gone beyond the need for such. After none of the others were captured when they were on the run, I don’t think it would be wise for them to try arresting Avengers again.”
“Especially with what happened with Thanos. Had there been less time to gather the Avengers together, there would be no way to unite against the mad titan’s army,” Loki added, earning a nod from the others.
“Why am I the only one who broke down on the first episode? This sucks,” y/n huffed, wiping away the few tears that found their way into her eyes.
“And that’s the vulnerability the audiences are looking for!” Wanda exclaimed as y/n snorted, understanding the reference a bit too much.
“Stop!”