Frank looks at the garden full of plants just beginning to bud out one day after work. If you had told him a decade ago he'd be living on a street with only one other family, growing most of his own food, and semi-retired from flying around the world with his team he'd have looked at you like you were stupid. Not that his wife is complaining, she's got him home every night and not putting his life on the line anymore.

The crew is still officially employed by the NIH but on 'detached' duty, Stephen and the other doctors working at various hospitals, Eva was working with the media, and he was working at Stark. They were also the 'NIH lead crew' in the area, one of many that don't work out of the DC. Though there's talk of buying one of the empty buildings in Manhattan for a branch office. But he doesn't see it happening, the labs at Stark and the Baxter building are much better than the NIH could provide them.

"Frank?" Two arms wrap around him. He'd been outside longer than she had expected.

"Hey babe, just thinking about how things have changed in the last ten years. That bastard Trask's disease changed so many things but we're alive, still together, the kids were able to keep their classes up while the schools were closed, we might have to grow our own food but we've got food." His wife nods against his back, he can feel it.

"You're not rushing off nearly dying thanks to some disease during a NIH call." His wife shudders. Any of them could easily have died at home thanks to that damn disease. So many of the people that she knew back outside DC had lost at least one family member, either close or extended. And whole families had been wiped out in some cases. Of the 247 students in her older daughter's year at school, over two hundred of them had lost at least one family member to the disease. Many had lost siblings, some had lost at least one parent. Her younger daughter's yearmates had been hit even harder, of the five hundred students in all the schools in the area, there were only two hundred left. And they'd lost their entire families.

Frank and his wife walk in, the girls looking up from either the extra work they'd been doing to keep up where they should be in their classes or working on stuff that will get them in a good school and a good job after they graduate or from where they'd been watching the baby's determined attempt to pull himself to his feet. His youngest daughter grabs the baby before he can fall and grins up at their mother.

"He's going to be walking before long."

"Forget walking, he's going to go right to running." Frank chuckles. "You two did."

"Dad, shipments of canning supplies?"

"Supposed to be delivered next weekend." a voice from the doorway says. Peter taps on the door and is waved in. "I got the heads-up just before I left Stark."

"Another whoops in the lab?" Frank chuckles.

"No, going over paperwork with Stark and the Banzai Institute so Aunt May will still have my pay coming in."

"We'll keep an eye on her for you Peter." Frank's wife says.

"Thank you, I know she's feeling better than she has in years but I still worry. It's only been her and me for so long." Peter sighs. "I know I had to grow up way too early when Uncle Ben was killed." Frank pats his shoulder as his wife hugs the boy. Both of them are thinking of their girls having to live through something like that.

"Peter?" May asks when he walks into the house with bags. She'd seen his car stopping down the block.

"Telling Frank that the canning supplies are going to be delivered next weekend, he'd already left Stark when I got the news. This way they're expecting the truck and nobody's either dropping stuff off outside or waiting for them to come back home.

May nods. "How are the commercial growers coming along?"

"Good, Tony's robots are taking care of the farms. Seeing how they do this year will determine whether or not the farms increase their crops next year. Some other areas. . .unless you can grow some plants yourself or have access to a community garden, you don't have fresh fruits or veggies." May sighs but nods, looking towards the home with the hydroponics growing area and then the garden behind their other house. "Having the other dimension having full harvests this year will help." May nods. "Tony and Dr. Richards will be harvesting crops in the lost areas again. Not gardens but stuff like apples, oranges, nuts. . .all the crops that don't need to be planted by humans." May nods again. Frank's wife taps on the door.

"I'm sorry to bother you two. Do you have any oregano and basil, ours isn't ripe yet."

"Dry or fresh? I just cut ours today." She walks into the kitchen and returns with four bundles.

"Thank you May, I'll bring some back when ours is ripe." She hugs the older woman and heads off to her home. Frank looks up from the stove and grins as she hands over the four bundles.

Peter checks in at the Banzai Institute and is shown to a room, quietly unpacking the two bags of clothes and other stuff he'd brought out with him. The news had quickly made the rounds that he was the child of people who had been loosely associated with the Institute, not officially blue blaze irregulars but had helped out more than once. Everybody who'd known his parents share stories about their adventures. And when he comes back from presenting his thesis they hold a party for him, Buckaroo smiling sadly as he sees three shadowy figures smiling behind Peter. He'd never met Richard's brother, but the resemblance is enough to tell him who the other man must be.

Tony grins as he walks into a meeting room. "I just got a call from the Institute. Peter presented his thesis and it was approved." Everybody in the meeting room smiles.

May smiles at her job as she gets the message. "Peter presented his thesis earlier this week, it was accepted." she says at the others looks.

"Doctorate?"

"He's taking a year off to do an internship out of the state, he figures on getting in next fall. There's no lack of positions in the program. . .now."

"No, not between schools only being reopened for a few years and all the deaths." Matthew says quietly from his desk. The door across the room opens and the meals from the communal kitchens are wheeled in. Tables are cleared off and the trays are set out, a handful of children having different trays and eating at a separate table because of food allergies. After the meal the trays from the communal kitchen are stacked back on the cart and it heads back to the kitchen where they trays are washed and set aside for the next meal as the tables are cleaned and everybody goes back to what they'd been doing or going to some of the 'classes' that adults drop in and teach. Crafts is popular, the day care center had brought in one of the hobby pottery wheels and there were shelves of various misshapen items drying to be taken home. Knitting and beading were also popular.

May had thought the house would be quiet without Peter at home but he calls nearly every night. She's working extra hours and cooking a lot on weekends, freezing meals for the rest of the week instead of having to sit down and cook for one person every night. Frank's wife had been taking her to get the few groceries she needs beyond the canned food and what she's been growing.

Mr. Stark had come out and done something with the houses, there's now three more floors on each building. . .one of which is a library that she knows is larger than the entire building. Peter had just shrugged and says this way all the information isn't lost if something else happens again. May had nodded at the wisdom of that, Peter had shown her a picture of the library at the other buildings and she'd moaned. All of those were at least ten thousand times the size of the ones in their homes.

"Yeah, there's a lot of speciality knowledge there that we're not getting. Large scale growing, all the sciences. . .including a lot of alien stuff. We want to make sure that we can survive if the world goes to hell like in all the bad end of the world movies and tv shows." He'd snorted. "Not that there are ever any good end of the world movies." May had laughed despite herself.

"Agent, museums and libraries. Add them to the list?" Tony asks at Coulson's clueless look when he walks into his office one day.

He blinks then slowly nods. "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. And we need a way to protect our history."

"Yes, already some fools in Washington are trying to sweep everything that happened under the carpet to protect their jobs in congress. Not surprisingly, they're some of the fools Trask gathered around him."

"Of course they are." Skye snorts as she walks in. "Sorry to interrupt but you have a call Mr. Stark, it's Ms. Potts. Line one."

"Oh good grief, I told her I was just coming over here. What now?" Tony grabs the phone, hitting a button. "Yes Pepper? Oh really? Tell the fools to go blow in the fucking wind the next time they complain and if they don't like it they can take it up with the governor and president. They'll knock the whining stupidity out of them."

"Fools complaining about how things are run?" Phil sighs.

"Yes, how can we grow food with robots. . .weeeeeellllll yeeeeesss, people were hungry last winter but that's the fault of the factories and grocery stores. . .doesn't food magically appear on the shelves? How can we actually grow food. Weeeeelllllll yyyyeeeeeessssss, robots growing it doesn't actually take jobs from humans. . .but still it's the principle of the thing. We don't want commercial farms growing food. Everybody in the world should be working for us in our factories."

"Idiots." Skye snorts. "But then those are the type of fools who want the truth hidden so they can make their dear friend Trask a martyr. Stark has to be taking over the world, he has to, he has to, he has to." She's stomping her foot and pouting by the last three words. Her boss sighs at her antics while Mr. Stark rolls his eyes.

"Pepper would shoot me if I tried taking over the world, I'd fuck it up so much worse than Trask did." He snorts.

"How are the plans for the hydroponics coming along?"

"Good, factories are making the parts in their own countries where they can." Phil and Skye nod in satisfaction. "List of best off countries?" Coulson asks.

"Wakanda one, Canada two, I say the US three, and Australia and New Zealand four and five. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand because they have all that open land that can be turned to commercial farming. Yes, the cities were as crowded as ours were but they didn't lose as many services we did thanks to the epidemic."

"Ours were failing to begin with, they worked hard at keeping theirs up." Leo says as he taps on the door. "Boss, our supply list."

"Thank you Fitz." Coulson says as he takes the paper.

"So, have you started your own hydroponics unit yet?" Tony asks Fitz.

"Yes, we have it at another base, at least one person is out there daily to check on everything. Skye will be officially taking over as head of it when she finishes her degree in hydroponics."

Tony walks back into the office a couple hours later. "Any more whining?"

"Oh yes, and they blustered they'd have us arrested. I told them we were taping their calls and if anybody was going to be arrested, it would be them. I could almost see the 'oh shit' look on their faces when I twisted the knife and told them that the governor and President had no problems with us taking over commercial farms."

"So why are they complaining? Other than they're miserable human beings." Clint snorts.

"Exactly. Now, I got a request from botany, a winter greenhouse."

"What's that?"

"It's a greenhouse without a floor, just the walls and roof. With heaters so that ground crops can be grown over the winter. In the southern areas where they don't get the winters we do they just have raised things over them that look like window frames. One of the farmers by me has a large winter greenhouse though he doesn't keep it running all winter. He just plants fall crops that would otherwise freeze before they're ripe. If you had one, you'd want to have a list of crops that can be grown or planted over the winter to make it cost-effective." Pepper nods in agreement. "I told to them to find a good place for it and to make up both a list of plants to grow and a business plan that would make it cost effective. Because we have both Malibu and the farms in Florida to grow those types of crops." Tony nods. "We don't need to grow food if we don't need it. Yes, we could pass it along to the others just like we will the crops in the other dimension but. . ."

"We don't need it right now so we're not growing it right now." Pepper says firmly. Tony nods.

"No, I don't fucking care if you want the land to build more fucking factories." The president gets up from behind his desk and starts advancing on the whining fool who'd barged into his office. He gulps and starts backpedaling, realizing he might have done something very stupid. "People need food to survive, or don't you remember all the empty shelves in stores last winter? If you don't I'm sure your constituents sure as hell do."

"But you're letting him farm that land. If we put up factories. . ."

"we have less room for to grow our food and we don't need any more fucking factories."

"But if we build more factories we can fill the orders faster, can't we?"

"No moron, people are already working two jobs. Where the hell are you going to get employees to work in your factories? And no, we're not closing down schools because you think they should be working instead of actually learning." The look on his face tells the President he'd been thinking just that. He points at the door and the fool runs off wailing. "Goddamn idiot."

"Yes, nobody should have a life beyond working for him." Horace snorts in the front office. "Little fool just wants massive profits, he doesn't see any of the effort that goes into keeping the factories operating."

"Exactly, if he opens a factory all the orders will come to him and he'll be instantly rich and famous, people will come flocking to him to do him favors, and by god. . .he might actually get a wife out of this." One of the secret service members on guard duty snorts. His partner snickers despite himself. Their boss would have a fit at them talking out of turn but the President told them more than once he values their opinion since they actually have some damn sense compared to some of the other agents, who were weeded out of the president's personal detail and were sent to other offices.

"Horace, do we have anything important this afternoon?"

"No, we've got a phone call with the PM in England, but that's not until much later tonight."

"Okay, call around for a car. I need to go shopping for my anniversary or I'll be sleeping in one of the other bedrooms tonight." The secret service agents snicker silently, the President is always saying his wife is going to make him sleep in one of the other rooms.

"Your anniversary isn't for three more months." Horace says patiently from the front room.

"It will take me that long to find something nice for her. The stuff I've been seeing online is absolute crap. I know what I want. . ."

"you just can't find it? Have you talked to one of the high-end jewelers about making is specially for you?"

"My wife would have an absolute fit about the cost."

"There's an 'expo' next week at a conference center. It's going to be jewelry, both large names and smaller one person operations." One of the guards says. "It's open to the public, I saw an advertisement for it in the . . ." the president is waving a section of the paper and he nods. He finds the page and nods in satisfaction. "Perfect, if I can't find what I want I'll have one commissioned from a smaller artist."

The crops start coming in a couple months later and people start getting in line at various government buildings to fill bags of food brought out from the other dimension. The morons had tried saying Stark was trying to take over the world again by offering all that food, they'd been told to grow the fuck up and if they didn't want to buy the food they didn't have to. They didn't have an argument for that. More than one person had snorted when they'd seen them standing in line for the food, whining about having to pay a good price for the food. . .they should get it for free because they're special. Instead of having to pay a sliding cost like everybody else.

Frank and his girls are bringing in bags and boxes of food that had been delivered, May shaking her head as they insist of helping her put everything away. She knows they're making sure she's got plenty of food, Frank's oldest daughter is nodding in satisfaction at the freezer full of frozen meals that aren't the ones you can find in the store's freezer section. . .her mother has been doing the same since she started getting in more hours at her jobs. Whoever is home first brings out a meal and puts it in the oven to bake.

"How is Peter doing?"

"Good, he's working with a lot of scientists and other experts he might not ordinarily have been able to talk to. Dr. Banzai is trying to talk him into going for more degrees, since everything is pretty much computerized now he can do it online and still live here. Of course Mr. Stark will whine about the pinch to his wallet. . ." Frank chuckles and nods. "He calls me nearly every night, it's been so long that it's just been the two of us. He grew up too soon."

"How is May?" Frank's wife asks when they walk into their house. "Girls, wash up for dinner and set the table please." they nod and head to the bathroom or kitchen sinks.

"Good, she's got her freezer full of meals she's made up ahead so she doesn't have to cook after work. She says Dr. Banzai is trying to talk Peter into going for more degrees, he's working with a lot of experts he wouldn't have been in contact with here in New York. He calls nearly every night to see how she's doing, it's only been the two of them for so long."

"He worries, I'll worry about the girls when they go away to school. . .even if they are just a phonecall away." His wife sighs.

"That's what family does, too often families drift apart once they start their own lives. It's only a tragedy like the disease or May and Peter losing Ben that makes families bond tightly." His wife nods as the girls start setting the table and husband and wife bring the food out to the table after putting the baby in his highchair.

At the Baxter Building Reed is dragged out of the lab where he'd been poring over data and forced to sit at the table to eat dinner with the others.

"We're not going to die in the next five minutes, are we?" Sue asks, her hands on her hips.

"No."

"Then that can wait an hour while we have a nice family dinner." Behind her Johnny is snickering. She swats backward and he dances out of reach. "Brat." she says without any heat. It's nice to see Johnny acting. . .well not as brashly as he used to but not the quiet man who kept looking out the windows anymore. The disease made him grow up. It made them all grow up.

Johnny puts the twins in their highchairs as Reed comes out of the kitchen, his arms stretched out to hold all the dishes of food. Sue is holding them in place with a forcefield and Johnny shakes his head. Sue can't just use the robot cart to bring the dishes out to the table. . .ohhhh, no not his sister. She gives him a look and he just rolls his eyes.

"Do you have companies set up for the boxes if they're needed?" The president asks Tony in a late night call.

"Yes, hidden under so many shell corporations they'd never be able to legally trace them back to me. I'm sure some fools would be pointing fingers and saying I'm trying to take over the world. And we've got accounts set up in each country so they can pay in their own currency if it's needed. But I don't see that happening for a while, not only would other countries get their backs up at one company supplying all the power, so many countries are barely squeaking by, they don't have the money to pay for their power. If they print more money, inflation would just make it worthless."

In his private study the President nods. "And 'offering' the power for little or no cost to them would make us the big bad 'mercans again."

"They'd have to make the first step."

"Yes." Tony sighs. The call ends a few minutes later and he leans back in his chair and sighs. He'd normally have a drink in his hand right now but he'd cut down on his drinking a lot since things had gotten so bad. He needs his mind clear, not clouded by alcohol. Taking a deep breath he stands up and has JARVIS shut off the lights in the room once he's left. He needs some sleep.

The gardens start coming in and Frank's girls, Miles, and Stephen's son come out to help May harvest everything in her garden, taking the bushel baskets of everything in the other house and helping her bring all the new canning supplies out and set up for her.

"Girls, shouldn't you be helping your parents?"

"The others are over there. The old saying about too many cooks spoiling the broth . ..wellllll, I'll just pack up my share of what's been harvested and canned when everything is done." Miles says with a grin. "Do we need to clear out hydroponics too?"

"No, I've been clearing that nearly daily." May smiles. The big pots are brought out and food soon starts cooking on every heating surface in the kitchen. Over the next couple of weekends the gardens are cleared, the plants tilled under, everything canned, dried, or otherwise preserved for the winter, and the others shares of Frank's garden is put away in their homes and apartments.

"Are the commercial farms all harvested?" Darcy asks a few days later.

"Yes, Tony made sure they had enough robots to operate all the machinery there too. The assholes in congress were whining about how it would take away their workers then went 'oohhhh' when they realized they weren't losing employees. Then they whined about robots until the President blasted their asses again and tossed them out of congress. Morons were nearly beaten to death by the people who voted them in and the people who voted for their opponents, they're supposed to be taking care of them. . .not taking food from their mouths by shutting down commercial farms and whining because they're actually producing food. The fools might not remember the empty store shelves, but their voters sure as hell do." Tony says from his office.

He comes to the door of his office and looks at Pepper. "Have you heard any complaints about clothing not being on store shelves?"

"Beyond the fools who wanted couture every season? No. Oh dear god don't tell me the fools in congress are going to be whining about that now." Pepper throws down the pen she's been playing with and looks at Tony. Darcy is looking at him too.

"B. . .bu. . .but . . .but if you have people working in those factories they can't work for me." Sam mock-blubbers as he walks through the office to the mail boxes. Leonard sighs but nods. Tony grabs his PADD, looking up and dialing a number as he leans on Pepper's desk.

"Charles Xavier."

"Xavier, it's Tony Stark. Have any of your precogs been hearing anything about the fools in congress complaining about people working at factories that produce cloth or clothing rather than for them?" a voice says in the phone he'd absently picked up. In his office Professor Xavier sighs and moans. "The precogs I know have been having some disturbed feelings."

"Yeah, that would probably be the next thing the fools in congress would go after because people are working for the other factories and not theirs. Like the commercial farms and factories, if they're not making them money they need to be shut down. I'd hoped the damn epidemic and other problems would either kill the fools off or make them grow up but. . ."

"Those types of personalities rarely do." He sighs. "Are we looking at buying factories that produce fabric and yarn, buying up farms that grow the cotton and grow animals for wool, buying more supplies of fabric to have on hand, more robots to run the factories. . ."

"all of the above I'm afraid. Damn it, this is going to get the fucking rumors I'm trying to take over the world started again." Charles chuckles softly at the grumbling as the call ends.

"Oh good, just who I was going to call." He says when the door of his private office opens and Raven, Erik, and Nathaniel enter the room. "The precogs disturbed feelings. . .clothing?"

Magneto sighs as Raven starts cursing roundly. "Damn it yes, that would be the next thing the fucking fools in congress would turn their attention to. Because if people are working in those factories, they're not working for me."

"Pepper, do we have classes for people to make their own clothes?" Tony asks after he puts the phone down.

"No, but we can certainly add them to the plans." Pepper says. She makes a note for research to find tutorials and whatnot on the internet and then adds that to the 'skills we're going to need' list. "We had plans for that in the beginning but the factories were able to produce clothing. If the fools in congress get their way. . ."

"The only factories that will be open will be theirs and people will work 24/7 until they drop." Bruce says as he walks in and looks at the mailbox. JARVIS had alerted the others to the new possible problem and over the next few minutes everybody settles in the 'briefing' room down the hall to make plans.

Pepper looks at him when the others start coming out a few hours later and start heading to the kitchen to prepare dinner. "I've got a list of factories to buy up in case the shit hits the fan, the President was not happy to hear about this latest possible problem, he started swearing on the phone. I've been a bad influence on him. . ." Tony smirks. Because he's damn proud of it. Pepper rolls her eyes as Tony grabs her phone again and dials a number he doesn't have to look up. "Barton. . .yes I know it's late, sit down and shut up. We might have another problem brewing."

At his farm Clint's face grows hard. "Okay, tell me." His wife and older daughter look at him from their putting dinner on the table. This isn't their husband and Dad, this is a highly trained SHIELD agent. "Fuck. . .you're right, that's exactly what they'd do. We're okay here, damn near everybody knows how to make their own clothes but if they shut down the factories making fabric. . ." He sighs. He listens for a few more minutes then ends the call. "The precogs are having disturbed feelings and Tony thinks that the morons in congress will try to shut down factories that make fabric and clothes now because. . ."

"Those people should be working for me." His daughter rolls her eyes. "Idiots, didn't they learn from shutting down commercial farms?"

"Those people never learn." His wife Amanda snorts as she and Clint settle the babies in their highchairs. "Until they're affected themselves, then they blubber that it shouldn't have done that."

"Exactly. Stark says there's shit tons of clothes in the stuff he and Richards put in stasis that China had been producing but if we can't make more fabric to make clothes. . ."

"Looms are going to be brought back out so people can make their own clothes." Amanda sighs. "Textile mills."

"Yep. Tony's got a list of factories to buy if he has to and he says he alerted the President, hopefully we can nip this in the bud. If not it might be slim pickings on the store shelves until things recover."

"Because it would take longer for clothes to disappear off the shelves than it would food." Amanda says. "Do we have a way to store clothes so it won't rot?"

"Yes, that's one of the buildings that went up thanks to Stark. And we don't have to worry running out of room."

"Then we're going to be going shopping." Amanda looks at her daughter. She nods. "Beyond what I'll need when I go off to university in a couple years."

"Get clothes in various sizes." They nod. "Sheets, comforters, quilts. . ."

"Towels and washclothes." Soon they have a list of items they'll need beyond fabric started. "We can hit the warehouse stores for some of this." Clint says. Amanda looks at her husband. "Do we need to start thinking of other stuff, like mattressed, box springs, bedroom sets. . ."

Clint sighs. "Yeah, we'd better." He sends off a message to Stark and they make another list.

At the tower Tony gets the message, sighs, and slides the PADD over to Pepper.

"Yes, it's something we'll need to start thinking about." She sighs as she reads the message. The others look at her. "Clint plans on getting in stocks of clothes and linens in case the fools do get factories making them shut down, he's also planning on getting in stocks of other stuff like furniture. . ."

"Which would be the next thing to go." Leonard sighs. "Do we have enough room in the warehouses?"

"Yes, I made them tesseracts long ago." Tony says absently. He takes the PADD Pepper slides back to him and sends off a message to first Clint, then Reed.

"Richards and I will take out another outbuilding to Barton's farm in a few days."

After dinner he dials Coulson's number. "Agent, sit down we might have a couple problems."

At his apartment Phil sighs. "Okay Stark, what now?" He listens silently for a few long moments then puts the phone down and curses fluently. In his office Tony smirks. Awww, Agent's a big boy now. He picks the phone back up.

"Agreed," he says calmly. "SHIELD has the other bases we can use for supplies. I'd rather not use the replicators for things like this unless we have to."

"Yep, not only would it be a waste of energy it's something somebody can be doing for a job." In his apartment Coulson nods. "Have you talked to the President?"

"About the possibility of the factories being shut down by the fools in congress, hopefully we can stop it. But I'm afraid some fools are already plotting, because they're not making all the fantastic profits they want."

Coulson sighs on the phone, leaning back in his chair and nodding. "If things go completely south, I see the President passing an executive order to turn all factories over to the government like *they* wanted."

"Yes, they'd whine like fools because they didn't mean it to happen to them . ..just to everybody else." Stark snorts. "It was only the government taking over phamaceutical companies when Trask tried shutting them down because 'well, they're not curing my disease anyway' that keeps people in the medicines they need." Coulson sighs but nods. "At least under government control you don't get the damn price gouging anymore."

"And clerks in drugstores can tell you options now in case it's cheaper to buy it instead of using insurance."

The call to Reed Richards is the last one of the night before Tony looks at the time and makes a night of it.

The next day Pepper drops a handful of files on his desk. "Factories that the fools in government are sniffing at because they want their employees. I wouldn't have gone looking except for the heads-up yesterday, the bottom three . . .I don't think are worth buying." Tony nods and opens the first folder.

He comes out off his office three hours later. "Yes on all but the last three. The other factories can take those employees and they do basically that same damn thing. But keep an eye on them, if they go into bankruptcy we'll pick them up and use them for something else." Pepper nods and starts placing the calls. Tony heads off towards the elevator, Pepper giving him a raised eyebrow. "I've got a meeting with Agent and Richards in ten minutes to go over the warehouses."

Coulson and Reed look over as Tony's car pulls up behind them. "Yes, I'm late. Pepper found several factories that the fools in the government are sniffing at, she wouldn't have went looking except for the heads up yesterday about the possibility of no fabric or clothes." Both men nod. "Did you buy them?"

"Most of them, Pepper said some weren't worth it. . .they should just be shut down and the employees moved to other factories that do the same thing. I'm keeping an eye on them. . .if they declare bankruptcy I'll pick them up for something else."

"Fabric?"

"Pepper doubled our orders just as soon as she heard the possibility of the factories being shut down. It will take a while but. . ." Coulson nods. They unlock the first warehouse and walk inside, Tony looking up what is being stored there in his PADD as they wander the aisles.

Much later that night Tony drops into a chair. He looks over at everybody. "The shields are now up to the second setting, there's mutterings in Congress about taking us out. . .whether we're doing everything legally or not. Because they think they should control the universe. The President's secret service detail has been doubled and HYDRA has protections in place too."

"For gods sake. . .why?" Steve sighs.

"For the same reason other sitting presidents have been assassinated, some asswipe didn't agree with their policies. In this case it's the assholes in congress who think they should be in charge, not us. Because we did all the hard work and they want to reap the rewards." Tony snorts.

"Isn't that why they ran for public office, so everybody can kiss their ass? It seems for every person in the government who actually wants to help people, there's ten thousand who are only in it for the power." Sam says, rolling his eyes.

"Only ten thousand?" Pepper snorts. "You're either discounting the morons or thinking there's a lot more people in office who actually help."

"Actually I was thinking of all the people in the VA hospitals." Sam chuckles. "The ones who actually work for a living." Pepper nods.

"Did the VA hospitals all reopen?"

"Not all of them, there's just not enough people to do everything. So many doctors and nurses died thanks to that damn disease. . ."

"They were working long hours and it wore them out, allowing the disease to kill them." Leonard says. "It wasn't just the VA hospitals that had to shut down."

"Yes, that's one job a robot can't take. . .no matter how much the fools in congress bleat. Same with law and sciences."

"Teachers."

"Law enforcement."

"Cooks since they can't taste the food and adjust spices. The replicator doesn't count." Natasha says. "Are we bringing out weapons to the various buildings?"

"Yes, and ordering much more. This will no doubt bring wails from congress and bring about the attack but it would weed the fools out once and for all." Nods from the others.

The phone on Pepper's desk buzzes and she absently. "Tony Stark's o. ..really?" She fumbles for the remote and turns the tv across the room on to CNN. "Phil, he says there's a massive power outage in the midwest."

"At least the power companies have time to work on the problem before winter." Steve shudders. "Is Clint's home anywhere in that area?"

"Yes, but he's got the alternate power as well as solar panels and batteries so he can say it's something else." the others nod. "He might be the only one with power except for generators and solar panels if it's something mechanical since I haven't heard anything about bad storms and everybody knows the power grid is going to fry one day." the others nod again. Tony sighs. He and Richards might be bringing out the power boxes and facility earlier than they'd planned. They'd planned on bringing it out next summer, but. . .

Pepper catches his eye and nods. She's already dialing the farm.

"Barton." Clint says on the phone. He relaxes and mouths Stark to his wife. "No, we're good. We've got freezers full of food thanks to the warehouse stores around us. The shelves of canned goods were getting bare last year but we still had some left over. We'd planned on starting filling rooms again but. . ."

"The power went out. Are you desperately running low on anything?"

"No, thank god. But store shelves everywhere will be empty in 24 hours if they have generators. The national guard is going around emptying stores of everything that would have to be thrown out without refrigeration and either passing it out to people with power or setting up soup kitchens to cook everything up." He ends the call a few minutes later.

"How is Clint?"

"Good, better than a lot of the others out there. They've got food and power, he said the national guard is emptying stores of everything that would have to be thrown out without refrigeration and either passing it out to people with generators or opening soup kitchens."

"Much better than just throwing it out." Bruce says. The others nod. "I'm off to bed, I have a shift at the recyclers tomorrow."

"So do I." Darcy says. "One thing about mandatory recycling in the entire country, landfills aren't getting full. At least here." She says at their looks.

"Yes, that's something else I'm going to have to look into, cleaning up closed landfills in other areas, both here in the states and in other countries." Tony mutters as he heads to his office.

"Did you eat?" Pepper asks his back.

"Yeah, we had dinner before I came back."

"Good, I have files of five more factories, three that make various yarns, two that make thread."

Tony sighs. "Yes, we'll need the thread to make the fabric." He spends a couple hours looking over the files and drops them on Pepper's desk before going to bed, a post-it note saying 'buy them' on the top folder. Pepper looks at them when she comes in and picks up the phone to start the process of purchasing the factories.

"But he why is he. . ."

"Anderson, quit your damn screeching or I will have you tossed out and barred from the white house." the President snarls. The man who'd demanded Stark be arrested gulps and quickly quiets down. "Now what the hell is your maladjustment this time?"

"Stark is buying factories!" He starts to whine. He desperately wants to rant, rave, scream, and throw things but he'd be tossed in a cell the second he started.

"And what the hell concern of it is yours? And don't you fucking dare start carrying on about how he's trying to take over the world."

"But he's buying all these factories. . .they make. . ." He looks at the notes and whines. "Fabric, thread, and yarn." How is he supposed to convince the President Stark needs to be taken out if he's buying those? If only Trask hadn't been shot, he'd have arrested Stark by now. Why won't this fool just listen to him?

"Yes moron: fabric, thread, and yarn. Everything that will be needed to make clothes. Which people need, both the people who live in New York and the rest of the country. Now stop your damn blubbering about how 'he's taking over the world' and get the hell out of my office. I'd worry less about Stark and more about your constituents who are without power. You know, the reason you're actually sitting in congress?" He runs off wailing.

"Goddamn idiot. He's going to be one of the fools trying to take out Stark for daring to do what they want and succeeding at it."

Several long weeks later the attack comes and is quickly foiled by the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Xavier's students, SHIELD, and other assorted 'heroes'.

"Gentlemen, how fucking stupid are you?" The president purrs on a screen after the attackers had been given some rough first aid by the authorities and were tossed in a federal prison without bail before their trial. "You were told everything Stark was doing was legal and that you'd be in prison for the rest of your miserable lives if you tried attacking him and you went and did it anyway. SHUT IT!" He says at the first opening mouth. "You're going to sit there like the damn whining fools you are and listen." he hisses. He lectures them for hours and tells them to enjoy prison, they'd be in those cells for the rest of their lives if they didn't end up in Gitmo. It begins to hit the fools then that they're in serious trouble, before that they'd been sure they'd be able to take over that upstart Stark's businesses and 'liberate' New York, ignoring the fact everything is running there a thousand times better than the rest of the United States.

"Idiots." Amanda says on the farm when she watches the video of the entire event that's been looping on various news channels over the last couple of days. "Did they really think they'd be able to take over?"

"Oh please Mom, they didn't think." Her daughter snorts. "They just saw Stark helping everybody and wanted the power for them. Stark was actually helping people. . .they just want to help themselves."

"Yep, I don't want people to work for anybody else but me. . .the commercial farms shutting down last year because there weren't any people growing the crops backfired on them. They didn't figure anybody would be bothered."

"Idiots." Her daughter snorts again. "Fools who never grew out of the me, me, me stage. Which is why they went into politics in the first place, they found a friend in that fool Trask and look at what happened." The door across from them opens and Clint walks into the house.

"Dad, are you okay?" Jane throws herself at her father along with her mother.

"Yes, the fools nearly shit themselves when Johnny Storm flamed on, let alone came near them. But there's a lot of congressional districts that are swearing in temporary state representatives until they can hold elections. The court cases will be televised live to make sure nobody pulls this shit again. I'd have been back a couple days ago but everybody insisted I bring supplies back with me since the power just came back on here and stores will have empty shelves for a while yet." His wife nods. "Stark was planning on bringing out a new outbuilding, everything's in there for the time being. I got a list. . somewhere." He looks through the papers Pepper had pushed on him. "Yep, here we go." He hands over the list and she shakes her head in disbelief. "Yeah, they wanted Stark's companies, he's going to end up with all of theirs as payback for their actions."

"Couldn't happen to a worse bunch of idiots." Jane says.

"That's everybody else's thought. They're fucking stunned that they're in prison, they were just trying to keep that bastard Stark from taking over the world. Because they wanted to." Clint snorts. "Jane, I got more assignments for you. And more textbooks." He nods at the bag by the door.

"Thanks Dad, the professor assigned a massive term paper due in July." Amanda says as she takes the bag and starts to open it. "Jane?"

"I just want to make sure everything's here Mom. I'm not going to start working until after the first of the year." She finds a list and double-checks everything before putting it in the room she and her brother had been using for their classes. Her parents are gone when she comes out and she chuckles, she knows where they are. . .their bedroom.

"Oh thank you Jane." Amanda murmurs when they come out a couple hours later to find dinner on the table, the boys in their highchairs and Jane putting the phone down. Her Dad looks at her. "Aunt Bobbi and Uncle Phil will be coming out in a couple days for the holiday. They're bringing Aunt Natasha out if they have to drug her, tie her up in a gunnysack, and sit on the bag the trip out." Clint nods in satisfaction.

"Aunt Natasha, will you look over a paper for me?" Jane asks when she is pushed into the house by a smirking Bobbi. "It's on Russian literature and I'd like a second opinion from somebody who read it in the original Russian as a native speaker. I think it's the most morose . . .shtuff." she says at her father's look, her aunts and uncle trying not to laugh as she gets around her father's habitual lament for her to stop swearing. "You hear all the horror stories about translated stuff not being the same in other languages. . ." she drags her off by the hand. The others wait until the door is shut until they start laughing.

"It's not the translation, that is morose." She says when she looks at the books.

"It's the russian equivalent of those damn 'oh woe is me' teen angst stories."

"Basically."

"We've started looking through their plans to take over Stark. . ." Coulson is saying as they come out of the room.

"Lemme guess," Jane snorts as she walks past. "They were going to take out the President next since he's actually doing the damn job and not kissing their useless butts. Don't they know everything they had their ddddeeeaaaarrrrr friend Trask pass was for them, not Stark?"

"Basically. The President was actually making them work."

"Oh god, the horror. The horror." Jane drawls as her family desperately tries not to cackle. "I always thought anybody who wants go go into politics. . ."

"Is the last person who should go into politics?" Coulson chuckles. "Yes, I feel the same way. That and if you 'do' go into politics, you don't get paid for it. That should weed out more fools."

"Amen." Jane opens the supply closet and brings out a package of toilet paper and heads upstairs to the second floor bathroom.