Peter walks out of the door of his house, looking over at the house next door. A Stark panel truck has just pulled in the driveway and he looks over at Mr. Stark who's bringing items out of the back. "Oh good, you're home. Give me the keys before Clint has to pop the lock." Clint rolls his eyes behind Stark. Peter rolls his eyes and brings out the keys, deliberately throwing them over Tony's head into Clint's hands.

"Hey!" He complains as Clint snickers and unlocks the door. "Keep it up and I'm not upgrading the facilities here."

"And that's a bad thing?" Peter drawls. Clint leans on the house cackling.

"Very funny you two. Bring everything inside."

"Yeth Mawsther." Clint says in a bad Igor imitation as he drags one leg and drops one shoulder to make it look like he's got a hump.

"What is all this stuff?"

"A food replicator based on soybean created meats. Don't look at me like that, while it sounds bad it tastes just like real meat." Clint says. "Richards and the Xavier Institute have been using them for years. Tony's putting them in our homes when he can, you can dial up anything from something like ham, turkey, or roast beef you'd get at a deli to a fully cooked roast." May looks at him from behind Peter. "He also wants to put in a hydroponics unit for something like peppers, tomatoes, herbs. . ." Frank had come over and looks at him. "We're getting a similar setup for you next weekend, yours is going to be a little bigger since you'll be passing stuff along to the rest of your team." Frank nods in satisfaction. "We'll start a list so we're not duplicating." May nods as she heads back into the house.

Peter and Clint start bringing stuff out of the panel truck, Clint shaking his head at how easily Peter can move stuff that took both Steve and Bucky to load on the truck. "Spider strength." Peter says absently.

"Stark, where's Bobbi? I've been trying to call her to invite her for Thanksgiving and Pepper just says she's busy."

"Agent got a call from a . . .well call it an independent consultant who was hired by AIM to work at one of their bases. He hadn't heard from them for a while so went investigating the base. . .they were all dead. Probably from the epidemic."

"And Coulson and the others are going through everything." Clint sighs.

"Yep, AIM has been vewy quiet since they killed dumbass. I'm wondering if it wasn't some kind of . . ."

"I may be dying but I'm taking you with me move?" Peter snorts. Clint and Tony nod. "HYDRA is still recovering from losing so many people in various other intelligence agencies."

"So are the agencies." Clint snorts. "Because it wasn't just HYDRA that got arrested in the purges."

"Are we seeing the deaths picking up again?" Peter asks the following day after everything has been installed.

"Not yet, but we will come winter. We're good but I've heard rumors of natural gas and propane shortages in other areas. Between a cold winter and more illness."

"What's the death total?"

"The precogs are seeing nearly three million by the time this next round settles down." Tony says quietly.

"Christ." Peter moans.

"Some areas didn't get hit last time, they're seeing them getting hit this time."

"Have you been experimenting with your nanobots?" Pepper asks the week before Thanksgiving. Her hands are on her hips as she looks at Tony who's busy actually doing paperwork for once. She'd tossed a rubber ball at him to make sure it was actually him and not a hologram. He'd just batted it away.

"Yes, we've not got a lack of empty homes and buildings." Pepper sighs but nods. "Have you seen the latest report from the new hydroponics?"

Pepper picks up something off the floor. "That's it. . .thanks. The governor wanted reports in case they put them up in other areas."

"How is New Jersey dealing?"

"Hunkering down for a long winter, the army is getting in supplies but. . ."

"It's going to be a long winter? Yes, there's no unemployment but many people are working two jobs to keep everything running and kids who should be in school are warehoused in day care centers or even working themselves. And of course some asswipes in Congress are still up in arms that our schools are open, they were sure they could get a measure on the ballot to shut down our schools. Not only did the president not allow them to put the proposal on the ballot, public opinion polls nationwide were overwhelming in our favor. They want their schools back open. . .before students are graduating in their twenties instead of their teens."

"But they ignored that." Pepper snorts. Tony nods, looking a lot older than he had before all this had started. "Yes, then wailing like little children when they were overwhelmingly voted out of office."

"How could you do that to us? We. . .we. . .we have your best interests at heart." Pepper mock-wails then snorts.

"Exactly. Ignoring all the areas that didn't see the tons of deaths and had their schools still open until asswipe yanked the rug out from under them?"

A crash of thunder and rain comes out of a clear blue sky. "Thor's back."

A few minutes later Thor walks into the office. Nodding in satisfaction he brings a bottle out of his bag. "Drink this." He orders Tony. Tony looks at him, shrugs, and pulls the cork. "All of it?"

"Yes." Tony downs the potion and makes a face, both at the taste and the bottle refilling. He still hates magic. Thor nods in satisfaction as Tony's skin begins to take on a tiny shine that he can only see because he'd been expecting it. He hands the bottle to Pepper who shrugs and drinks it, making a face and covering her mouth before she belches. Tony sniggers and she gives him a look. They look at Thor. "Our seers have seen this disease. . .changing."

"Oh lovely, just what we didn't need." Pepper moans. A male moan from the doorway heralds the arrival of Phil. "Hail, son of Coul."

"How sure are your seers . . ."

"Verily."

"Damn." He mutters. Tony lifts an eyebrow when he sees Thor offering Phil a different bottle.

"The crap Fury used to bring me back has made me immune?" Coulson sighs. Thor nods. "As the serums used on Barnes, Steve, and Natasha."

May looks up from the book she's reading at the tap on the door. She opens it and stands back, shocked at the return of her past.

"Lord Thor."

"Lady Mayden."

"It's been several decades." She lapses back into their native Norse.

"It has."

"Are you here to gloat?"

"No, mine father was wrong to banish you for daring to be right." He hands over a bottle and brings two more out of his bag. "The remaining seers have seen the illness getting worse."

"Peter?" she sobs.

"Will be fine, but he will still need your guidance in the future."

"And Asgard?"

"Punishing mine father for his decisions. He has been sent on a quest to learn humility and sense. Mine mother and her advisors are in charge and going through centuries of his decisions, overturning most of them."

"Your father was a power-hungry fool."

"I cannot fault that logic. Mother did her best to temper her decisions before he destroyed Asgard by starting Ragnorak but. . .."

"Your father was too stupid to listen to good advice. And he was turning you as stupid, isn't that why you were banished?"

"Yes, I learned from my errors. . .hopefully father will do the same." She takes the bottles and drinks all three one after the other.

Peter returns home from his finals later that night, May hugging him with more strength than she's felt for decades. While she wouldn't have traded her life here on Midgard for anything, she'd found her beloved Ben and lost him way too soon she had a son in Peter. He never would have fit in on Asgard, it was too rough and tumble.

"How were your finals?"

"Good, I won't know my grades for sure until after the grades are sent out but I was getting a solid A in all my classes." She smiles and hugs him again. "Your friend Kate?"

"Settling in well in her last year of classes. 95 percent of the seniors chose to return to school. . .even those like Kate who got her GED. Because they need them for future degrees or jobs."

"Did your friend have to move schools?"

"No, but a couple of her friends did."

Clint's wife Amanda smiles as she sees Bobbi and Coulson following Clint into the farm that's been expanded over the last couple years.

"No Natasha?"

"She didn't grow up celebrating the holidays in Russia. A family dinner like this would be torture. She's investigating another AIM base we found while going through the files." Coulson says quietly. Clint nods.

Thanksgiving is a couple of days later and May knows it's mean, but she sniggers softly at all the Black Friday hoopla that falls flat as the sales don't match the hype. Peter shakes his head but smiles.

Clint isn't that nice, he's cackling at his farm. His wife and Bobbi give each other long-suffering looks and Bobbi swats him upside the head since she was closer. Coulson hides a chuckle from where he's helping the older boy with some homework from Xavier's.

Tony laughs heartily in Stark Tower at the wailing of big business at having a second year of bad Black Friday sales. It should have been better than last year all the lord high muckety-mucks wail on various sites. It's the fault of New York's schools reopening, the students should have been working. . .the president cusses out the moron who'd said that and he skulks off with his tail between his legs before somebody shoots him. It's the fault of people not working themselves to death in factories making high-end products, if they had been advertised everybody would have come rushing to the stores somebody else had claimed. . .they too had run off before being lynched. A poll had said that people didn't want to rush out the day after Thanksgiving for shit nobody needed anymore and some fool had wailed their life was over if there wasn't going to be the black friday sales anymore. Everybody had ignored the fool, realizing that life had turned a page and the people lining up days before Black Friday without even knowing what was going to be for sale were gone or had better things to do.

Coulson leans into Tony's office a week after Thanksgiving. "Do we have seafood farms?"

"Yes, I brought five over the last year." Tony finds the file and puts it on the screen across from them. "I want to put a couple more up over the next couple of years." Phil nods. "Has anybody said anything about how the skies seem to be changing?"

"No, and everybody is worried since there was hints that the damn illness wasn't his only attempt to rule the entire world. . .not just the US."

"Yes, the illness was just his way of punishing everybody who didn't vote for him here." Pepper snorts. "Whatever else was to consolidate his power everywhere else."

"I'm sure the old fool is wailing about it in whichever version of hell he's currently rotting in." Natasha snorts as she walks into the office. Peter comes in sniggering a few minutes later. Tony and the others look at him.

"Some fool in DC wailing because he can't get the schools shut back down. . .not because other states can't compete."

"More like don't even want to try." Pepper snorts.

"No, he wants them shut down because there's no sports."

"Christ." Tony moans as Natasha swears in Russian.

"Yeah, fool didn't get his way then either, the president told him our schools are running two shifts to educate everybody. They don't have the time, energy, or ambition to start sports programs again. He ran off wailing."

"Of course he did, he was sure this would be the excuse needed to close our schools and put us in our place." Coulson sighs. "Idiots can't stop sticking their nose where it doesn't belong."

"Too long being in power, now that they're seeing people doing very well without their help and are sulking. Because if they're not needed, they might not be able to keep their cushy job."

"Speaking of cushy job, what happened to that damn fool who tried stopping the schools opening?"

"The president threw his ass in a jail cell for six months, solitary confinement with his only human contact being the meals pushed into his room. He refused to eat for a few days. . .he wanted better food. . ."

Ooh la la sounds from the others.

"Old fool finally realized he wasn't going to get what he wanted and finally started eating the food they gave him. He wailed like a baby when he found out the special election had went through and he'd been voted out of office."

"How could they do that to him?" Pepper mock-wails.

"Yes. He was sentenced to six months for repeatedly harassing us, the judge told him too bad he couldn't charge him for being too damn stupid to live. Once he's finished with his sentence, he'll be sent home and have to find a job."

"Oh lord, I'm sure we'll hear the wailing when that happens." Tony mutters. the others snicker or nod.

A few days later Tony and Coulson walk into a meeting room in Albany. A couple representatives from the government in New Jersey and an .. .independent consultant like Tony. Tony knows him by reputation, Dr. Buckaroo Banzai.

"Congratulations on getting the schools reopened gentlemen, you're proving the naysayers, the doom and gloomers, and the people who are bleating that 'there had to have been a reason for him got shut down the schools, a *good* one. . . we just don't kow what it is yet and something bad is going to happen since they reopened their schools' wrong." He shakes his hand, subtly checking his health and smiling inwardly when he feels the signs of Thor's meddling. Good, the world will need Stark for a few . . .centuries. He shakes Agent Coulson's hand next, inwardly wincing at the 'wrong' feeling he first gets, then he feels Thor's meddling again. He'd heard the rumors about how Fury had used alien. . .stuff to bring him back, that must be what he was feeling.

"Thank you for coming gentlemen, I apologize for making this meeting at this time. I'd have rather waited until after the first of the year but. . ."

"Morons in the government are still trying to throw a wrench into rebuilding. Because if some places are getting along fine, they might have to do some work." Tony snorts.

"Indeed, since we can show we're recovering without their help they're pouting."

They talk over a list of items over the next couple of days, being put up in the governor's mansion since the talks go long into the night.

"Hmmmm." Tony thinks as Buckaroo talks about his internship programs at the Banzai Institute."I can think of two people right away, but they're both in school. Peter is nineteen and partway through his bachelors at ESU. He's currently working at Stark." They go over some of his work. "The only downside is he's an orphan, he lost his parents as a toddler and was raised by an aunt and uncle. His uncle died a few years ago and he's been taking care of his aunt since then, she's working outside the home now and while she's in better health than she was. . .I don't know if he'd be interested in being away from her as long as your internships last."

"Something to think about. And the other?"

"Kate Bishop, she was a senior when the schools were shut down. She went on to get her GED but returned to her school for her senior year when they reopened. She's an orphan too, her mother died a few years ago and her father a couple months before the schools closed. She's an emancipated minor since she was only a couple months from turning eighteen."