Rachel had her three children and their overnight bags when she rang Zac's doorbell.
Zac
Zac opened the door.
"Hey," he said. "You're a whole two minutes late. Unless you're going by the clock in the kitchen, in which case you're five minutes early."
He nodded gravely.
Rachel
"According to my watch, I'm 2 minutes early," she said, giving him a hug. "Here's Annie's stuff. And these are the Twins' things. Clint should be here in about 2 hours to pick them up for his first weekend alone. I was hoping you could talk to him before he leaves. He's still a bit, well, in shock. Maybe you could help him deal with the whole being a parent thing. And here's the number of the resort we're at, the number for Hank at the mansion, the numbers for the police, and YIRAAS. This is my mobile number, Mac's mobile number, and did I mention that I've never left them before?" Rachel started hyperventilating.
Zac and Saku
"Rach, breathe," Zac advised. "Breathing keeps you alive. It's very important."
He grinned at her as he took the babies things and the phone numbers. Saku poked his head in then and gave them a hand.
Rachel
Rach got her kids settled in, then left for her spa weekend with Macauley. Not half an hour after theyd gone, Clint rang the doorbell.
Saku
Saku answered the door.
"Hey Clint," he said. "Come on in."
He held the door open for him.
Clint
"Daddy!" Anakin said, crawling over to his father.
"Um, hi," Clint said, scooping up his son. "Which one is this?" he asked Zac quietly.
Zac and Saku
Saku closed the door behind Clint and Zac looked up from his seat on the lounge when Anakin crawled over. Zac was a little surprised that he had known his father when he saw him, given that he didn't think they had met before.
"Hey," he greeted. "That's Anakin."
"And this is Krit," Saku added, bounding over to collect the other twin.
Clint
"Rachel invited me over on Tuesday. She said she shows them my picture and music videos regularly. God, I can't believe I have twins." He rubbed his temples. Bob was being loud in his head, wanting to meet his twin nephews.
"How do you handle this?" Clint asked Zac. "How do you deal with suddenly being a father?"
Zac and Saku
"Hmm..." Zac said with a sidelong glance at Saku. "Well... I think my first reaction was shock. Then I started asking a bunch of questions. Of course, Saku looked about three when I got him."
Saku grinned.
"I don't know... you just take every day as it comes. And don't get into the bad habit of letting your children inflict your revenge on your siblings for you. They might get the idea that it's okay to throw fireballs at their Uncle."
"I was never that bad," Saku objected.
"Well, no... but I was pretty mad at Ike and I probably wouldn't have stopped you if you did," Zac mused. "Well, unless the place started lighting on fire..."