Avengers ⁷

The morning began not with coffee, but with Sam's screams throughout the second floor and the crash of a tapestry being torn down in the hallway.

"He tried to eat me!" Wilson declared, holding the candelabra like a club.

“I’m more than sure I didn’t try,” Strange drawled, looking at him like a man with very little patience and even fewer nerve cells left.

"Dude, that thing crawled out of the canvas and tried to bite my leg off!" Sam pointed to the crumpled image of a unicorn.

Strange turned his gaze to the tapestry and sighed.
"Okay," he conceded, because unicorns aren't as cute as pop culture makes them out to be, "Okay, maybe he did try. Leave the candelabra alone, Wilson, it's cursed."

The sound of a dropped candelabra felt like a gong striking in the ear.

"I hate this house. I swear I hate it!" Sam groaned, running his hand over his face.

“Oh, believe me, the feeling is mutual,” Stephen snapped sarcastically.

A rumpled Bucky looked out at the noise - he had spent half the night fighting off some creature from under the bed that had tried to steal his hand.
"Another new day in the nightmare mansion," he muttered, heading to the bathroom without even looking at them.

Vision floated past from wall to wall with a tray of croissants for Wanda, who, judging by the sounds from the bedroom, was trying to figure out what she had done wrong in this life to deserve all this.

"Strange!" Tony's angry cry came from somewhere down the stairs. "A tentacle in the laundry stole my shirt! It's worth more than you!"

"Mr. Stark!" Peter echoed, "Ghost stole my homework!"

Stephen looked down, feeling like a holy martyr. For the first time in his life, he missed Dormammu. Because even he wasn't as terrifying as the Avengers in Sanctum, forced to hide there due to violating the Sokovia Accords. Thanos was dead, he didn't have time to obtain all the Stones—the reunited Avengers killed him back on Titan before the Snap. But after that, politicians outlawed everyone. And while Clint and Lang were back under house arrest, and Thor was in New Asgard, the rest of them now lived here...