Brooklyn was just the beginning; at the delicate age of eleven, just on the verge of twelve, her hormones had decided to take her on a wild trip into puberty. It didn't take long for you and Steve to get the hang of talking to her when she was feeling overly emotional, and it wasn't unheard of for her to run to Wanda or Nat when she felt like you weren't giving her the answers or advice that she wanted to hear. In her hormonal swings, she often took most of what you said in incorrect ways, but you did your best to not let it get to you, because that would only make it worse; you had never been more thankful for the other women in the compound until right now.

But then, the inevitable happened; Anthony and Grant were soon behind in hormonal surges, and Steve was doing worse with his sons than when Brooklyn had her changes begin, but it wasn't the mood swings that he found the most challenging. No, Steve could handle that, given his years working with the likes of Tony. What he couldn't deal with was the eruption of fires around the grounds at any given moment when Grant would lose his temper, or when Anthony would project his mood outward and make his dad cry at the drop of a hat in the most inconvenient times during mission debriefings or conference calls with Secretary Ross. Steve had finally reached his breaking point when Brooklyn too began to lose control of her abilities, sending his breakfast plate shooting out from under his fork and into the far wall of the kitchen during one of her angry outbursts; the terrifying thing was that she was in a completely different building when it happened. Without missing a beat, Steve stood and stepped over the shattered glass, making his way to you without allowing anything to get in his way.

"Honey, we have a problem," he began, even before the door to your room was fully open, "the kids are out of control. Literally out of control. I'm scared to eat breakfast anymore."

"Why?"

"There's a nice mix of eggs and broken glass on the kitchen floor. I don't know if Brooke realized that she did it because she was nowhere in sight when the thing just flew across the room right out from under my hand."

"Likely not," you sighed, "because Anthony's projecting stronger than ever too. Maybe I'm just an easy target with our link to each other, but I'm feeling his emotions more than my own anymore."

Steve nodded with a welcome understanding, pushing the door shut with a quiet click. He didn't move further into the room however, instead leaning back against it as he thought about what the two of you could do to help your kids. Neither of you had any experience with this, and when he had spoken to Wanda right after Brooklyn began to have her troubles, she only worsened his worry when she couldn't offer any more help either. "So," he finally offered softly, "I'm open to ideas."

"Well, crap. I was just about to say that to you," you answered with a humorless chuckle. Taking a seat on the edge of your bed, you patted your hand gently on the spot next to you to summon him over, waiting until he was settled before beginning again. His posture wasn't that of the strong version of your husband that you were so used to having next to you; he was hunched and tired, resting his forearms on his legs as his hands wrung together tightly. It only fed into your own uncertainties, and did nothing to soothe you. "Hey, we'll figure it out. If not, at least puberty doesn't last forever, right?"

"Ha!" he scoffed, but his expression didn't brighten. "It feels like forever. You forget already?"

"Selective memory. But you know, now that you brought it up, what was your puberty like? I mean, you pretty much stopped growing at what, ten?"

"Okay, that's just mean!" he finally perked up, turning to look at you as if you had just slapped him across the face. He sat silently for a moment until his expression relaxed into just the hint of a smile at the corners of his lips, realizing that you actually weren't that far from the truth. "I stopped at twelve."

"Oh, my poor sweetie," you consoled with a small pout, wrapping your arm around him to lean your head against his shoulder. "You made up for it later."

"You're darn right I did."

You had your retort ready; so much so that you opened your mouth to dazzle him with your quick wit, but your moment was obliterated by the sudden wash of tears that began to flow and the choking, painful lump in your throat that silenced your voice. The emotions weren't your own, but Anthony's once again.

"You or Ant?" he asked, the levity of the moment gone and now fully concerned, his senses on immediate alert.

"Ant," you whispered between gasps, trying to regain your control over yourself. Steve was wonderfully patient with you, sitting silently and watching when you closed your eyes to try to find your center, but rather than calming the waves that crashed into you, they only grew stronger. Your heart was pounding so hard now that the sound was almost deafening to you and the emotions began to shift; you weren't feeling the despair anymore, but rather a blinding rage that you were quickly losing control of. "Steve...you should go. Find him."

"Why? What's happening?"

"Just go find him," you snapped, standing up with a hard push up from the mattress, tipping him away, "or is there a better way for me to say it so you understand? Slower, maybe? Smaller words?"

"Ah...got it," he nodded readily, not arguing and hurrying towards the door, "just stay in here until I get to him, okay?"

"Don't tell me what to do."

"Okay, doll, sorry," he relented, giving you a small wave before hurrying to get to the other side of the door and clear of the angry fire in your eyes as you watched him leave. He was thankful that the assault from Anthony was still weak enough for you to keep on top of with merely a few angry words, but it made him apprehensive to find his son, not knowing what he was about to find and if he had any control at all. Within a matter of seconds, before he could reach the elevator just at the end of the hall, the fire alarms sounded in a screeching decibel. "FRIDAY?"

"Mr. Barton has extinguished the fire, sir."

"Great, thanks," he sighed, spinning on his heel to turn and face you when he heard your door open again. You emerged with one of your white bathroom towels wrapped around your hand, saturated with your dark red blood in a striking contrast that had Steve sprinting back to get to you. "(Y/N)! What happened?"

"Maybe you need to find Brooklyn too," you offered quietly, "after you help me to the infirmary for a few stitches?"

~~~

Steve dropped you off with Bruce so that he could round up your three children, both of you hoping that their moods would be in control by the time that he found them. The heavy sigh that you let out when the door closed behind him wasn't missed by your friend as he worked on your wound, making you turn to face him when you felt his progress stop.

"Whatcha thinking, Bruce? If you have any ideas that could help, I'm totally ready to hear them."

"What makes you think that I have any insight on hormonal pre-teens?"

"You're part Hulk. That has to be about the same, right?" you smiled, relived when he laughed at your joke, when there was a fairly decent chance that it could have backfired on you and turned into an insult. "Controlling those emotions must be along the line of pubescent rage, so who better to ask?"

"Hmm, interesting thought," he leaned back against his chair as he considered it, "but now that you mention it, the other guy can be pretty immature and hard to reason with." He sat steady for a few seconds, rolling his thoughts through his mind; you could see the faraway look in his eyes as he replayed events from the past few years and as much as you wanted to ask where his mind was going, it almost felt voyeuristic. "Well, damn, (Y/N), I think you're right. I'm a hormonal rage monster."

"So do you have any enlightening revelations for me?"

"Actually," he smiled, his hands quickly returning to their work "I do. Oh, great," he stopped, shaking his head in frustration, "I stopped for too long. You're starting to heal and this is gonna scar."

"It's fine."

"No, it covers almost your entire hand, (Y/N). Do you really want that-"

"What I really want is to hear what you have to say. I don't care about my hand right now." You tried to pull your hand back and away from his reach but his reflexes were remarkably sharp and able to catch you before you could evade his grip. "Bruce, I'm serious."

"Hi, Serious, I'm your doctor and you're going to do what I say," he snipped, holding your hand tightly so that he could begin to stich again.

"Smartass," you muttered, relenting and relaxing back against the cot; you watched his hands move gracefully yet swiftly, trying to stay one step ahead of the healing to bring your cut tissues back together with clean edges as best as he could. He seemingly had forgotten that he was about to tell you his ideas as he worked, leaving you only more frustrated and more eager to pull from his grip again just to get his attention, but you weren't in the mood to tempt fate with the possibility of the other guy becoming the enforcer. "Okay, spill."

"Well, what I was thinking," he began quietly, "is that when you go to Wakanda in a few days, maybe you should take them all with you."

"Ugh, I don't know, B," you shook your head, "I don't think that they should really be there considering why I'm going in the first place. I don't know how I'm going to react."

Bruce nodded in understanding, furrowing his brow as he tried to think a way around your argument. T'Challa had offered to bring you to his country to work with his best scientists and therapists to try to draw the fight programming out of you, inviting Bucky to accompany you as your most effective trigger. He had wanted to take you, Bucky, and Steve to Wakanda when you had all been triggered together a few years ago, and now that you were having similar problems again, he wasn't taking a declination for an answer. Your fear was founded in not knowing how it was going to go, with no reassurance from T'Challa; you believed that he knew about as much as you did at this point, but you were willing to put all of your trust in him because he had never failed you before.

"Maybe getting your family out of this environment for a while is what you all need, (Y/N). After everything with Maggie..." he sighed, "it certainly can't hurt. I know that T'Challa would welcome you all in a second."

"Yeah, I know he would, too. I don't know...maybe. If nothing else, I'm sure it would make Dad happy to not have the fire alarms going off every hour. But...but what if this doesn't work for me, Bruce? What if I take my family across the world just to fail them?"

"You could never fail them, (Y/N), you know that."

"That may be true, but I don't want my kids to see me like that. I was already scared to let Steve into that part of my mind and look at how that turned out. I'm worried that when all is said and done, my own kids will be too scared to be near me. I'm terrified that they might get too close and that I could hurt them."

Until now, your friend and teammate had been nodding along to what you were saying as he listened to your concerns while now bandaging up your hand; but your last sentence stopped him abruptly and left him staring at you with confusion. "You could hurt them? You lost me."

"You knew that Bucky was coming with me, didn't you?" When he merely shook his head, still confused, you realized that he hadn't been told the extent of your trip until right now. "Bruce, he's my trigger, and there's only one way to know for sure if this whole experiment works or not. He needs to keep trying until either the risk is gone, or I accept that my days on the team are over."

"You're not the type to give up."

"No. I'm not."

"That's not necessarily a positive attribute this time, (Y/N)."

"I know," you smiled gently, "that's why I've asked Steve to decide when to make the final call, because I don't think that I can. I'll just keep on, and I'm scared that if I don't stop, a trigger could come that I can't be drawn out of. I'm just...scared."