Rosie beamed as she led the way through the private entrance of the Tower. Peter's leg wasn't as badly broken as hers had been when she had first moved in, so he was allowed to hobble around on crutches.

Clint had insisted on joining the tour, saying that Peter might need help walking. "Rosie, you might be strong enough to support him, but I really don't think it would be too comfortable for the kid to lean on you, seeing the height difference."

Grumbling about her short height, Rosie had seen the sense in his words and let him join them. She was by far the shortest avenger on the team with her measly height of 5'2'' which made her look even younger than she was. 

It was really annoying as the guys were all either more than six feet tall or barely a couple of inches shy of it, with Thor towering over her by almost a foot and a half. Natasha and Wanda were 5'7'' with Sharon standing at 5'8". (These are the comic book heights) It made her feel like a dwarf at times and left her to be the butt of all the height jokes as well as the baby ones.

With Peter now living with them, she knew he would be getting the title of 'Baby Avenger', considering the fact that he looked like he was twelve except for his insane height. At fifteen, Peter was already 5'11", with lots of time left to grow taller. 

She had a strong feeling of deja-vu as they walked to the tiny room where the Access cards were printed, remembering the first time she had come there in pretty much the same physical and emotional condition. Peter looked at the Resident-Level card in his hands with stars in his eyes, as if it was just sinking in that he was actually going to live in Stark Tower with the Avengers.

Pretty soon, they were on her floor. It had been years since she moved in, but only three rooms were currently occupied. One was her room, the other was Jake's and the last one was the enormous library that Tony had bought as a 'welcome-back' present when she came home from MIT. 

Yeah, he had bought an entire library one night when he was sleep-deprived without Pepper finding out until all the books were brought into the Tower. Rosie had moved a lot of the books from the overflowing bookshelves in her room to the library and quite a few members of the team came up to there to enjoy the silence it afforded.

Peter looked in awe as she opened the door to his room. Though he had told Rosie what he liked, she had not shown him the finished design, wanting it to be a surprise. The wide grin on his face said everything. 

"Thank you." He whispered, his eyes brimming with tears as he looked around the room, drinking it in. Clint had tactfully left a couple of minutes ago and it was only the two of them there now. "Anytime, Pete. So, do you want to make any changes?"

He shook his head. "What's gonna happen to the a-ap-apartment?"

"Do you want to keep it? Or should I arrange for it's sale?"

He considered the question for a few more minutes before replying, "I don't want it. It won't be the same without her."

"Alright. Once we get whatever stuff you want out of there, I'll do that." She reassured him. "You don't have to worry about it."

"Do I have to be there to sign anything?"

"Not unless you want to. The flat is technically yours now, but as you're a minor I can handle the sale with a written authorisation from you. Now let's go meet the team."

She could see the nervousness flare up when she said that, his body tensing slightly as he followed her to the lifts. Trying to reassure him, she said, "They're just people, Peter. Besides, you've already met Tony and Clint."

"Clint is an Avenger?" Peter sounded startled.

"Hawkeye. He prefers to keep his real name away from the press, and we support that. Try not to freak out when you find some weird stuff in the penthouse, okay. There's guns and knives hidden all over the place and Thor tends to leave his hammer in the most annoying places. Clint booby-traps the vent system and Pietro's sole aim in life is to piss off Jake. You might find Pietro and Sam running around with a prosthetic arm while a hundred-year-old super-soldier chases them, cursing in Russian."

His eyes grew wider and wider with each sentence and Rosie smirked as the elevator doors opened. "Welcome to the Penthouse!" She threw her hands apart in a grand gesture just in time for a cacophony of noise to hit them and an enormous blob of jam to hit her in the face.

The sounds of chaos immediately stopped as she swivelled around to glare at the team. There was a full-blown food-fight going on and it had moved from the kitchen to the living room. Every single surface was covered in some sort of food and she could see ketchup bottles stuck to the ceiling along with yesterday's leftover pizza. 

Pietro was giving her an innocent smile which she could barely see due to the ice cream smeared across his face, Steve was guiltily sitting on Bucky's shoulders and had an empty pot in his hands, which had no doubt once contained the spaghetti, for Wanda was standing right next to them, covered in spaghetti from head to toe.

Clint was half-hanging out of the vents and Rosie caught a glimpse of Tony hiding further inside the vents. They were using Clint's excellent aim to pelt the others with ice cream scoops and dollops of mayonnaise which Tony was hastily filling into the special water balloons he had designed as a joke a few days ago. 

Natasha was taking cover behind the overturned sofa, her hair completely white from the flour that had been dumped on her, holding what looked like a paintball gun modified to shoot tomatoes. Sam and Thor were near the fridge, both holding enormous jars of jam with their faces and clothes all sticky from it.

Rosie surveyed the destruction of the penthouse which now looked like a tornado had ripped through it. She silently wiped the jam off her hair with a nearby napkin and glared at the idiots who the world called the Avengers. "Who. Started. This?" She growled out.

Every single Avenger gulped and pointed at the person next to them, looking like a bunch of schoolyard kids being scolded by their teacher. Rosie pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. It was times like these that made her feel much older than what she really was.

"Where are the others?" She asked, trying to take stock of the situation.

"Sharon and Pepper already left for work, but I think Suzie's out on a date. Maria borrowed Vision and Rhodey for a mission."

"And Bruce?"

Steve looked sheepish at that. "I might have almost made him Hulk out... He escaped to his lab. Haven't seen him since."

Right, so she was the only responsible person left here. Peter was goggling, wide-eyed at the mess in the Penthouse. He slowly stepped out of the elevator, trying to avoid the slippery sauce that was all over the floor. "Great job on first impressions, guys. And Clint? How the heck did you join in so soon? You were with us until ten minutes ago!"

"Skills, sweetheart, skills."

That was the signal for a universal eye roll. Rosie put on what Tony called her Mom-face, glaring at each and every single Avenger individually. "You guys get the absolute pleasure of cleaning this whole place up and then making it spic and span. No, Tony, you can't use your bots. And no making Pietro and Wanda do all the work with their powers. You guys trashed the room and all of you are cleaning it. Yes?"

She was met by a large number of groans. "Am I clear?" She growled, putting on her best terrifying glare, "This is why I helped design the paintball arena. But noo... You guys have to have a food fight in the penthouse, so this is your punishment. I'm going back downstairs and I want this cleaned by dinnertime."

There were a few flinches and nods. "Good. Get to work now, chop chop." She clapped her hands and everyone started moving. Rosie gestured for Peter to get back into the elevator, yelling just before it closed, "Tony, I know you're there in the vents. You can't pretend to have work and escape; no lab till you're done here."

Peter seemed to be in shock and didn't say anything for the next few minutes, before blurting out, "Did you just ground Iron Man from his own lab and tell the Avengers to clean up the living room?"

"I did." She grinned. "They're like a bunch of overgrown children sometimes. You should see the prank wars we have every now and then."

Peter was looking at her in disbelief, so she said, "That's what the Avengers are in private, Peter. A group of people with unique skills and abilities who live together and cause chaos, while saving the world at the same time. They're all human and they all have their moments of strength, weakness and stupidity."

"Weakness? But heroes are meant to be strong."

"To the public, yes. But everyone is scared of something. They all have their own demons to fight off, but we all support them and help them through it. No one can stay strong forever and its okay to feel weak sometimes. As I told Steve years ago, Peter Parker can exist without Spider-Man, but can Spider-Man exist without Peter Parker?"

Seeing that it had made an impression on him, she pressed on. "Don't think of yourself as any lesser than Spider-Man, Pete. You're the kid behind the mask who's preventing dozens of crimes every week. There is no doubt that you are a hero, but you are entitled to your moments of vulnerability, or weakness, as you call them."

That night, as she lay in bed, Rosie thought back to that fateful day seven years ago that had changed her life forever. In a rather weird way, she was glad the kidnapping had happened, for without it, she wouldn't have met her Dad or the awesome people that made the Avengers. Sure, they acted like idiots, but she loved them all the same. They were a family.

They were her  family.

She was no longer 'just a normal kid'. She was now a force to be reckoned with, but her main goal of helping the people was still alive in her heart. She would find a way to fulfill her dreams, with her friends and family by her side. She was Doctor Rosanna Rhodes Carter, hacker extraordinaire, daughter, niece, sister and friend.

END