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Just before Evelyn’s first birthday the Avenger’s were send out to prevent some robots from destroying downtown Manhattan.
It was simple and easy; a quick clean up and the news crews were there to capture the whole thing.
Pepper was looking after Evie for the day at the tower, watching her niece crawling rapidly round the floor and walking unsteadily. She clung onto her pink rabbit and gurgled away in her own baby language.
The news came on screen and Pepper watched eagerly to make sure everyone was safe. Evie noticed she no longer had her aunt’s full attention and turned to see what could be distracting her.
“MAMMA!” Evie screamed in delight at the screen as Natasha appeared in the background of the shot
Pepper looked at her niece in amazement, her first word, at least her first proper, understandable word...
“Mamma! Mamma!” Evie repeated, running up to the TV and pointing, turning to face Pepper smiling brightly
“Well done Evie! That’s right! That's your Mommy!”
“Mamma?” Evie questioned when the news report moved onto another story
“Mommy will be home soon” Pepper promised, scooping her niece into her arms and tickling her. She loved to hear her laugh
***
On hearing that Evie’s first word was ‘Mamma’ Clint was determined to get her to say ‘Dada’ next, but it didn’t work. Her next word was ‘no’. Clint blamed that on Natasha too.
She started saying ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ next, and not long after she added the word ‘bang’ to her vocabulary. The team laughed at that one saying she’d heard Tony exploding things in his lab too often.
The next word she said was Rozovyy, the Russian word for pink and the name she gave to her stuffed rabbit.
***
“This is getting ridiculous!” Clint complained one day when he heard Evie ask her Mom for her her ‘botbot’
“Come on Clint, you know Evie loves you. She’ll say ‘Daddy’ eventually”
“Yeah, probably after she’s learned to say Tony, Bruce, Steve, Thor, Jane, Darcy, Pepper...”
“Pep?!” Evie asked, suddenly more interested in her parents conversation than the bottle of milk she'd been drinking
Clint threw his head back into the sofa dramatically and sighed
Natasha decided to take pity on her long suffering husband and pulled Evie into her lap;
“Look Evie who’s that?” she asked, pointed to Clint who looked up hopefully
His daughter stared at him silently before wiggling down from her mother’s lap and running off.
That night Clint tucked Evie up in her crib while Natasha took a shower;
“Goodnight my little spider” he whispered, stroking her head and kissing her forehead
“Na na Daddy” she muttered, already drifting off to sleep
“Tasha! Tasha!” Clint shouted, bursting into the bathroom
Natasha was dressed in nothing more than a towel and was a little taken aback at her husband’s sudden excitement
“Tasha! She said it! She said ‘Daddy’!”
Natasha smiled and hugged him, “I told you she’d say it eventually”
“Yeah, well it took long enough!”
“Clint, stop being bitter; go back to being excited”
“It was amazing Tasha, hearing out baby say my name was the best thing I’ve heard since you agreed to marry me”
“You’re so corny”
“I know, but you love me anyway” he said smiling and kissing her neck
"Clint, that's the sort of behavior that lead to you becoming a dad in the first place"
"I know... Tasha, let's have another baby?"