i'm the hero. i'm just in time.

Kitty had to make a three-tier cake for class, and today while Lexi was at school was the best time to do it. By the looks of all the ingredients she had laid out, she might be taking this a little too seriously, but also she didn't care.

Midway through pouring the batter in the second of the three pans, something occurred to her, and she called, "Clint, do we have sprinkles?"


[For the husband!]

Kitty got back late last night, which meant today she had been running around trying to get everything done for the party she had totally emailed everyone about earlier this week.

So now the house was decorated for a one-year-old's birthday party, which... wasn't super decorated because Lexi was one and didn't care. There was food and drink and party hats the guests were encouraged to wear because they made the birthday girl laugh (the dogs were totally wearing them), and Lexi had her own little princess chair that she kept crawling or toddling out of. At least the kid was having fun.

Come one, come all, enjoy a baby's birthday party!


[If you want to have gotten an invite, you totally did!]

Months ago, Kitty had said she was going to throw a birthday party this year, just to make Rosa go to it. And then Clint and Kitty's birthday week came up and she decided nope. They had a very-nearly-two-month-old, she was tired, she just did NYE, no.

Instead, they were celebrating their birthdays with an actual date night. At a hotel. Where they could sleep the whole night. And get room service. And not have to clean anything. It was gonna be great. Kitty was already in pajamas.

And as she pulled the cover off one of the food trays, she made sure her phone was face up on the bed and in sight so she wouldn't miss any calls about Lexi. "No news is good news, right?"


[For the slightly belated birthday boy.]

Late Tuesday night, a text went out. Hopefully people were awake, or had their phone on silent. In that text was a picture of a smush-faced baby girl wrapped in a pink blanket, along with Meet perfect little Alexandra Marie.

At this point, Kitty was exhausted, and totally unaware that she was going to get woken up seventeen times during the night by nurses, but at the same time... lookit. She was holding an adorable brand new sleeping toy here.

"Seems weird that they're just going to let us walk out with her," she said. "It's insane that they're going to let us do that, right?"


[For the babydaddy, but open for replies! If you think you got it, you did.]

Kitty was pretty obviously not running around in spandex and fighting bad guys for part of her week these days, but she had plenty of people who kept her at least vaguely in the know about what was going on there. And yet no one had told her anything in the entire time that Peter had apparently turned himself in and gone on trial for a mission gone wrong. No one had wanted to stress out over it, and she got that, but it meant that there was a lot for her to unpack after she'd gotten the call from Logan last night.

She hadn't said anything last night, since the last time she'd seen Peter there had been a Phoenix Force-induced attempted murder of her husband and things were Complicated, and she wanted to think things through first. She hadn't slept much, either, which wasn't unusual now, but she'd finally given up and gone downstairs early to get out her laptop and try to research what had happened.

Some people dealt with things in healthy ways, some people obsessed over figuring them out.


[For the boy! Don't ask me about the current state of canon!]

For days Kitty had driven herself crazy waiting for a phone call from her doctor back home, waiting on genetic testing results that would tell them whether or not they were getting the kid they expected. It didn't matter if they were closed, she still half expected it. She'd even maybe hacked into their system to see if her results were in there somewhere, because she had some little boundary issues there.

She was trying to be a little less psycho about it, though, and today called a minute after they opened, because she didn't want to seem too pushy. Of course they didn't pick up right away, so she had to call back five minutes later, and that time at least someone picked up.


[For the guy!]

Today was just going to be a nervewracking day and Kitty was committing to that. It was the first time ever she’d been wishing for Clint to just leave the house already, and once he was gone she immediately went upstairs and closed herself off in the bathroom.

Then there was time spent sitting on the counter with the timer going on her phone so she knew when there wasn’t a point in watching anymore, fidgeting like crazy as she waited to see if anything was going to happen.

For about a minute. And then she was left with, “Huh.”

[NFB and for that guy!]

( Not that every day wasn't sort of a disaster anymore, but today it seemed that the X-Men were facing off against the Phoenix, and Kitty was still here, running a school while it went down. They had taken in the kids from Utopia, who had just been over at the Avengers Academy, Paige had just quit today so they were down yet another teacher, and not only had Kitty had it, but she figured the kids had, too. So, she threw an impromptu dance, right in the middle of the week, because screw it, depending on how this fight went and whether the Phoenix up and ended the world, tomorrow could be very bad. If there even was a tomorrow. )


[And that much-shortened catchup is over. Taken from Wolverine and the X-Men #18, and now for Clint!]

Everything was chaos at the moment, but it was also birthday week, and these things had to be celebrated. Also, it was an excuse to dress up cute and get the hell away from a building full of teenagers for a little while.

“You know what’s nice?” Kitty said as the waiter left after taking their orders. “Feeling sane.”


[For the partner in birthdays!]

(Getting any real work done over the last day was impossible. The kids weren't paying attention, the teachers weren't paying attention, and Kitty was paying attention in public and then ended up watching the news in the headmaster's office in private where the kids wouldn't be watching.)

[Preplayed with the amazing so_hawkward! Taken from Wolverine and the X-Men #10 with mucho editing.]

Kitty woke up way too early because there was a dog licking her face. Lucky had been through this enough times to probably get what was up, but all Kitty knew was that the best way to wake up was giggling while also trying to get him to stay still long enough for her to pet him.

[For the boy! Literally!]

Kitty had spent her morning catching up on paperwork at the bar- something she felt like no one else ever said ever- and then on her way back home, swung out to pick up a pizza.

Look, hard work deserved pizza, okay?

"Honey, I'm home," she called as she phased through the door like normal. (Seriously, why would she ever use a door.)


[For the hubby!]

Kitty at least had not thought about what was going on today when she and Clint decided on a belated birthday trip, but it was turning out to be a good thing. It was hard to watch TV or tweet or whatever when you were busy making your husband try on ears.

"Try these," she said, handing him a pair.

[Yep. For the poor husband.]

Sure, Kitty was waking up in a new bed and there was a boy there. That was important for roughly four seconds.

Because on the approximate fifth second, she'd realized there were puppies in the room, and clearly it was more important to be on the floor and playing with them. And maybe shrieking with glee once or twice when one of them would try to lick her face.

[For the sorta-hubby, to live the lives we as a people deserve for ourselves.]

It was going to be a full house this weekend between her guests and Clint's, and so Kitty was on her best behavior. This maybe had something to do with the fact that she was a little uncomfortable around her so-called best friend these days, and also something to do with being limited on space and knowing people would be all over the house. Normally she might make a beeline for coffee in the morning, but today she showered and dressed and then made a beeline for coffee.

And while she was at it, she might as well start on pancakes. There couldn't be any weirdness around pancakes, right?

[Open!]