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Marvel Bang Fic: Part One - 99 problems (and the dice ain't one)
"You can't just bring someone along," Tony hisses, sneaking a look over Clint's shoulder at the red-haired girl curled up on one of the recliner chairs wearing a Chicks with Dice t-shirt.
Tony had purchased an entire warehouse, converted it into apartments and moved his friends (Barton and Banner) and frenemies (Coulson) in so he didn't have to deal with this exact scenario.
"Don't have a heart attack, geez," Clint says, looking unrepentant. "You'll like Nat once you get to know her."
"That'll be a first because I don't actually like anyone," Tony says, raising in eyebrow. "Especially you right now."
"She's cool. She provides a dynamic which we're sorely lacking."
"I'm cool."
"You're a dick, actually. But that's okay because so am I."
"Remind me again why I let you live here rent free?" Tony asks archly.
"She's into gaming but she hasn't had a regular group for years. She was really interested when I told her about your campaign. She's a little bit scary but in a nice way. Plus, it's always good to have a girl on the team at cons."
"Are you implying that her gender will be advantageous when it comes to procuring gaming trophies?" Tony asks, then throws a hand out behind himself to the wall that is basically covered shelves of gaming trophies of all types. "It's because you don't like playing the girl characters, right?"
"Every game! I get stuck with being the chick in every game."
"That's because you're the pretty one."
"Please," Bruce huffs, scooting past them into the kitchen, talking around a sherbert straw he's chewing. "Everyone knows I'm the pretty one."
"Everyone knows you're the deluded one," Clint throws at him and Tony rolls his eyes, then catches Natasha tossing something from hand to hand.
"That giant plushie D20 is not regulation!" he shrills.
"What's wrong with it?"
"It's got arms and legs."
"Relax. We just picked it up from the bargain bin in the Tin Soldier when we were getting her real dice. I got a plushie Cthulhu and a plushie Ebola." Clint holds up something that looks like a fluffy brown worm with big cartoon eyes and bats Tony's nose with it.
"I'm still vexed."
"Who uses that as a word in a real sentence?" Clint asks, shaking his head.
"Just let her play," Bruce interjects, bypassing them again, this time balancing a huge bowl of popcorn on top of a six pack of cola. "We've had a gap in our team since Steve left and I'm sick of the weird ringers we keep getting lumped with at cons."
"We don't even know if she'll want to go conning with us or just wants to come to the Friday nights," Tony gripes, sensing he's losing which he never likes.
"She'll come," Clint says, grinning. "She was in when I told her our team name was The Drunken Dwarves."
"Fine," Tony grits out between his teeth.
"Cool-"
"One caveat though. She does her own character sheet. I don't want Phil helping her. He's such a rules lawyer and he's always way too powerful. I don't want two of them."
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le_prince_lutin
Tony works in a little coffee house called Bean Man and while some would think that was a waste of his brain, Tony likes to believe it's a valid life choice. Thanks to a hefty bank balance care of Howard Stark and Stark Industries which he is paid not to frequent, Tony doesn't necessarily have to work for a living.
He just likes the routine.
He also likes making the angry vein pop out in his boss' forehead because Fury by name, Fury by nature.
"You got time to lean, you got time for me to kick your ass!" Fury calls from the kitchen, spotting Tony using the counter to prop himself up in the lull between the before-work zombie rush and the mid-morning crazy eyes crowd.
"I don't think that's the saying," Tony calls back, smirks to himself when he actually hears Fury growl. The bell over the front door tinkles and Tony straightens, slumps again when he sees it's just Phil, looking harried but pristine as usual.
No one actually knows what Phil does for a living. Tony would like to think that he puts a suit on everyday to panhandle but that's probably not the case.
"Coffee," Phil says. "I'll take it in an IV if you have one so it reaches my veins sooner."
"Bad day?"
"I'm a misfiled report away from nuking the site from orbit." Phil nods, scowls when Tony dawdles over to the coffee machine. "Or a slow coffee," he amends and Tony throws him a yeah, yeah hand wave over his shoulder.
"Hold your horses. Hill called in sick so I'm dealing with everything on my own today." Tony has to grin to himself when Phil passes an incredulous gaze around the nearly empty shop, one booth taken by an elderly gentleman who's nursing a tea and doesn't look to be needing anything else for a few hours at least.
"Whenever I'm actually away from you I start thinking you're not as bad as all that, then I see you again and am reminded that you are." Phil's the only one who actually pays Tony rent, his idea. Tony thinks it's just so he doesn't have anything to hold over Phil or stop the insults.
"Did you get the letter about the upcoming apartment inspection?" Tony asks mildly, watching Phil fume through the reflection in the coffee machine.
"The one you tacked politely to my door with my replica Gimli axe? It was a little hard to miss."
"If you signed the same leasing agreement as Clint and Bruce, you wouldn't have to have inspections you know?" Tony says, turning and offering Phil the large mug. Phil takes it, sniffs it suspiciously, but there is one thing Tony won't mess with and that's a man's coffee.
"I read Clint's leasing agreement. There's no way I'm ever signing a document like that."
"Spoil sport," Tony grumbles as he watches Phil inhale half the coffee he was handed, no thought for delicate mouth skin apparent. "Wow, do you have a giant coffee callous in your throat? Even I can't shotgun it like that straight from the machine."
"If I thought it would reach my brain faster, I'd pour it into my eyeballs," Phil says, hugs the remaining half of his coffee in the takeaway mug to his chest like Gollum with the one ring. "Hey, isn't that Natasha?"
Tony's gaze jerks over Phil's shoulder as the door tinkles again and Natasha enters the place, clutching a folder. Clint was right, Natasha was the kind of cutting that Tony could appreciate and he did find himself grudgingly liking her despite himself.
That didn't mean he wanted her invading every part of his life.
"Coffee?" he asks, as Phil says hello and scrambles out, sipping at the last of his coffee a little more sedately.
"No. I came in because there was a help wanted sign in the window," Natasha says, waves a hand vaguely in the direction of said sign then looks back at Tony.
"That's been there since two thousand and three," Tony says, which might not be exactly true but it has been there since Tony started two years before and other than himself and Hill, no one else has been able to survive the interview process. He figures his charisma and Hill's stubbornness got them through but he's seen at least a dozen college students actually crying after meeting with Fury, never to be seen again when they fled.
"So, there's no job?"
"There is," Tony says, ignores Natasha's confused look in favor of yelling for Fury that he had a visitor. "May the force be with you," Tony says cryptically when Natasha makes her way towards the kitchen and Fury's glowering countenance.
Art byle_prince_lutin
"A man's dice bag says a lot about him. Mine says distinguished, worldly, classy. Yours says dirty gym sock tied with a shoelace. Are you happy with that?"
"I think you'll find yours says pretentious dickwad," Clint grumbles, leaning over the glass case with the collection of dice bags. Tony watches him eying a black leather one, so predictable, then move across to the dice themselves.
Tony has spent years putting his dice collection together. They are a perfect balance of color, weight and wear to give him maximum chance for critical successes. Clint, however, every time he loses one or three of his dice, which he manages to do every game, mostly because he resorts to throwing them at the others or Tony when a roll doesn't go his way, just grabs the plastic tube with a full set.
Heathen.
"-so it'll be good to have Steve back, right?" Clint is saying and Tony thinks maybe he missed a part of that sentence.
"What?"
"Steve? His Nana's sick or something. You know he's coming back, right?" Clint finally drags his attention away from the dice case and his eyes narrow. "We just all assumed you guys were writing flowery love letters to each other while he'd been gone."
"I... what?" Tony repeats, blinking and wonders if the weird rushing noise he's hearing is the first sign of a stroke.
"Y'know, tiny, blonde, always with a cold Steve? He's only been gone a year, man. Even someone as self-absorbed as you couldn't have forgotten him."
"I... no, I didn't forget him," Tony says, grimaces when he sounds a little more fervent about that than he would have liked. Of course he hadn’t forgotten Steve. He just... after a couple of emails and a letter he'd re-written about a thousand times that he never sent, he'd kind of broken off contact.
It had been too... something. He hadn't really wanted to analyze it.
Clint's looking at him funny. "It's good that he's coming back, right? You didn't say anything you couldn't come back from when he was leaving, did you?"
"What are you talking about? He moved away, end of story. He's coming back, awesome. Maybe I'll get someone that won't stiff me when it's time to pay for pizza."
"Oh my god, it was an off-pay week. Are you never going to let that go?" Clint demands, peeved, and thankfully distracted. Tony breathes a small sigh of relief when Clint stalks away.
Clint never stays mad for long. He comes back a few moments later gripping an expansion pack, reading the back. "Bruce said he ran into him about a month back when he went to that convention in Kansas. Said he got bigger."
"Who?" Tony asks.
Clint rolls his eyes, looks up. "Steve. Bruce said he didn't even recognise him."
"Oh, well, I suppose he was due a growth spurt sooner or later, poor guy," Tony muses, still a little thrown by the whole topic. He'd been slowly but surely resigning himself to the fact that Steve Rogers was out of his life, that he wouldn't hear Steve's wheezy little laugh ever again, see his big earnest blue eyes.
That it was probably all on him didn't escape his attention.
"Man, I honestly thought you'd be the first to know," Clint continues, oblivious to Tony's inner guilt. Steve had tried maintaining contact, his emails getting less jovial and more confused the longer Tony ignored them until Steve had stopped writing altogether, the silence telling.
"He might be mad at me," Tony admits glumly.
"He'll get over it. It's Steve. The guy's a walking marshmallow." Clint nudges Tony towards the register with his expansion pack.
"I was a bit of a dick."
"Imagine my shock."
"I mean, I thought he wasn't going to come back, like ever."
"So you, what? Had a tantrum about it?"
"Sort of."
"You're hopeless," Clint says sagely, before smiling and handing his money over to Hannah behind the register.
"I'm aware."
--
Like he's summoned just by being talked about, when they get back to the warehouse Steve is there.
"Steve!" Clint crows, looking delighted and leaping at him. He wraps arms and legs around Steve's body like a velcro monkey and Steve, who last time Tony had seen him had been a foot shorter and delicate enough that a strong breeze sent him stumbling, hoisted Clint off the ground. When he was set down Clint was blushing and chuckling, trying to negate his complete ridiculousness by punching Steve heartily in the bicep.
Steve is smiling, large and beautiful but it dims a little when he spots Tony hovering in the doorway.
"So, steroids?" Tony blurts, because of course that's the first thing he'll say when he hasn't seen the guy in a year. Clint's right, he's a dick.
"Nah, horse tranquilizers," Steve says and bizarrely, it's the right kind of horrible to break the tension between them and have Steve smiling again, like it's a relief that Tony's exactly the way Steve left him, eternally inappropriate. "Long time no see."
"We were right here." Tony winces, because he sounds bitter. Steve just kind of huffs and shakes his head like he expected this kind of treatment and then drops back onto the couch next to Bruce, showing him god knows what on his phone.
Clint takes the opportunity to punch Tony in the arm as well, then shuffles over to join Steve and Bruce, making appropriately interested noises at whatever Steve is now showing them both.
"So, pictures of the boyfriend?" Tony asks, can't really understand why he's ramped up to Defcon Ten on the dick scale today.
"The art at a show I got to work on," Steve says without looking up, still dismissive of Tony like you'd ignore a kid having a meltdown on the floor. Fair enough too, since that's kind of what Tony feels like he's doing, just in a more dignified, passive-aggressive adult way.
"In New York," Tony says, waggles his hands, then tucks them in his pockets. Now all three of them are ignoring him and he puts up with it for about three seconds before he flounces, no wait, strides manfully out of the room and heads for the kitchen and precious coffee that will never, ever leave him without so much as a by your leave.
--
Tony feels the itch between his shoulder blades that means someone's standing behind him, starts to say, "Look, I'm really sor-" but cuts off the apology when he turns and finds it's Bruce that's followed him into the kitchen and not Steve. "Oh, did Steve-?"
"He left."
Tony tries to bite down on the disappointment he feels but he mostly fails by the way Bruce is looking at him over his glasses.
"You want to tell me what that was about?" Bruce asks, tilting his head. The main problem with being friends with the same people pretty much your whole life is that they can tell when something's up, will call you on being a brat if they need to.
"No," Tony says peevishly, crossing his arms and staring at his shoes.
"I know we joke about it a lot but... was there something, y'know, between you and Steve?" he asks so very carefully.
"God no," Tony chokes out, swipes his coffee cup off the counter and tries to hide his face in it. "Nothing, no, nothing like that ever happened."
"Did you want it to?" Bruce asks, which is a whole other question. Tony must take too long to deny it because Bruce's expression goes all soft and sympathetic. "Tony, maybe you should-"
"Do absolutely nothing about it. Yes, that's an excellent plan and what I intend to do."
"Tony, that's not-"
"Bruce, honey bear, brain of my brain. Please stop trying to have a heart to heart with me before I break out in hives."
"You're deflecting."
"Yep. Still doesn't change the fact that I don't want to talk about this, with anyone, ever."
"Maybe you should talk to Steve. He's been gone a year and all the extra terrible one-night stands you've had in that time, yes, we noticed, haven't gotten whatever this is out of your system which means it's serious." Bruce is frustratingly reasonable when he wants to be.
"Like a heart attack," Tony gripes, which is basically true. He'd thought maybe distance and time would heal whatever damage Steve had done to his delicate places, had even been a tiny bit relieved that Steve had left because he'd been nursing this whatever it was since they were both sixteen and it had left him more than a little weary.
Tony remembers lying next to Steve on his crappy narrow bed in his Nana's apartment, their shoulders pressed together and Steve talking with his hands, making sweeps in the air with fine, delicate fingers. Tony remembers feeling the urge to just roll over and kiss Steve soundly.
He remembers being scared to death by the impulse.
"You don't know what he feels."
"I know Steve left which means he probably feels exactly nothing."
"You could try asking him."
"And have him be all sweet and sympathetic and earnest at me? No thanks, I'd rather do without that."
"You could at least be civil. Steve thinks you're still mad at him for going," Bruce urges and Tony scowls and huffs but finally relents.
"Okay, alright. I'll send him an invite to next week's game."
"That's a start," Bruce says magnanimously, then steals the rest of Tony's coffee because his friends are awesome in some ways but also completely suck in others.
--
Tony is all of ten minutes late to Bean Man the next morning, but apparently that's enough time for Natasha and Hill to become best friends forever. Natasha is smiling which is a little unsettling because it’s like seeing a shark smile right before it takes a bite out of you just for curiosity's sake and Hill is laughing which... Tony didn't think she was even capable of it.
"Stark," Hill greets, nodding efficiently, her laughter drying up.
"Queen Scarypants," Tony greets in turn and Hill rolls her eyes and turns back to the coffee machine, Natasha's attention on her as she runs through the various settings. Tony, thoroughly ignored, what is it with that lately, meanders into the kitchen where Fury is kneading dough.
Or, more accurately torturing the ever-living hell out of dough.
"Are you losing your unsettling mojo?" Tony asks, watching Fury work. Everything he makes tastes great, but he's apparently never heard of having love as an ingredient. Instead, Tony can practically taste a little bit of anger in everything Fury produces.
"Meaning?" Fury grunts.
"We have a new employee instead of someone moving states and changing their name so you are never ever able to track them down again."
"You're a funny guy," Fury says without inflection or looking up.
"No, really. That means we're at full staff capacity doesn't it? That's just... I don't think we can take the Help Wanted sign down, it's been in the window so long I think it's fused with the glass."
"We still need someone to wash dishes," Fury says after an actual thoughtful pause.
"Oh well, that's alright then. The balance is restored," Tony says and wanders back into the main shop area to start flipping the chairs upright and set the sidewalk tables outside.
He's struggling with one of the outdoor umbrellas when another set of hands appears, helping to click the stubborn thing into place. "Thanks," Tony grunts as Natasha steps aside for Tony to drop the sandbags onto the umbrella's feet to keep it in place.
"No problem," Natasha says, looks at Tony with her head tilted. "Is this okay?"
"What?"
"Me being here," Natasha says, her hands fluttering around herself then towards the store.
"Of course," Tony says immediately, a little uneasy that he's been unreasonably rude to someone that is, well, a little scary, but also perfectly nice.
"I'm sorry about crashing your game the other night," Natasha continues. "I thought Clint had cleared it with you."
"No, it's really fine," Tony says, feeling like a bigger douche by the minute as Natasha basically apologises for existing. "You were good, you fit in well and you accidentally killed Clint your first game. All positives in my book."
Natasha chuckles, squeezes Tony's arm. "Thanks. I was thinking maybe I'd overstepped or something."
"Nah, I got other stuff going on," Tony dismisses. "You want to learn how to use the coffee machine?"
"Maria just showed me." For a second Tony blanks, then realises Natasha is talking about Hill. Sometimes he forgets she has a first name like everyone else.
"On the contrary, Hill just showed you how to be frustrated by a machine that will not give you what you want, if the way she swears at it every day is any indication. I will show you how to coerce Dummy into giving you the goods."
"The coffee machine's name is Dummy?"
"Seemed appropriate at the time."
--
Tony's feeling pretty good that he's grown as a person, accepting Natasha into his life and all, so he's not prepared for two drastic changes in one week which is why he probably overreacts, just a little.
"No way." The others are all staring at him as he bends the DM screen in his hands back and forth, scowling.
"Tony, just this once," Steve says.
"You go. We've already got plans, set in stone," Tony says, sweeps a hand towards the door and also sidesteps Bruce's attempt to kick him.
"Everyone agreed to go," Clint says, hesitant, looking between Steve and Tony with concern plain on his features.
"Every Friday night, every Friday night, we game until dawn. You're allowed to skip it if there are family obligations, work obligations or you submit a request in writing at least four weeks in advance. We don't just decide to go out drinking halfway through instead to meet up with your new work buddies. This is not a democracy, it's a cheerocracy and I'm overruling you all."
"Do we have to ban you from Kirsten Dunst movies again?" Bruce groans, smacking a hand over his face.
"We've already played a few hours and I didn't think it would be a huge thing to wrap up early. Thor and Bucky are good guys and I thought you all would get along-"
“What kind of person is named Thor?” When Tony sees everyone start to shuffle around and pack up he shrills, "No one's going anywhere." He blinks because even he can admit that that might have been a tad too much.
"Can I see you in the kitchen a moment?" Steve asks, hooking Tony by the elbow and not really giving him a choice when he tows him from the living room. Clint, Phil, Bruce and Natasha watch them go with wide eyes.
"I forgot what an inflexible bastard you are." It's weird hearing Steve curse. He was raised in the time warp that was his Nana's apartment and became bully fodder not just because of his size, but because he said things like gosh, darn and swell unironically.
"I'm not inflexible," Tony says. "There was that unfortunate episode when we were eighteen that we shall never speak of."
"What... Tony! It's not like we killed someone. We played Vampire: The Masquerade."
"Never speak of," Tony repeats with a delicate shudder.
"As I said, it's not like we didn't play. I just wanted us all to go out and do something social."
"This is social," Tony grumbles.
"This is the opposite of social."
"This has been our Friday night plans since we were twelve. It's... reassuring and absolute. You can't just come back here and start changing everything."
"I'm not changing everything. I'm just trying to get you guys out of this place to meet new people before you find yourselves all attached to each other with mould."
Tony pulls a face, because that is not a pleasant image. "Yeah, so, what? Tonight it'll be playing for three hours then going out. It's a slippery slope. Before you know it, everyone starts thinking that their Friday nights are free and makes other plans and we never play again."
"You're overreacting."
"So's your face."
"Tony... that doesn't even make sense."
"Neither does your face."
"Tony, it's just this week, I swear. It's the only night both Thor and I have off work together for a month. C'mon, please?" It's completely unfair the way Steve's eyes go big and liquid like that.
Tony crosses his arms, uncrosses them, scowls and finally throws his hands up in defeat. "Fine!"
--
Asgard is about as awful as was suggested from the garish outer neon facade. Tony balks, feels firm hands plant on his shoulder blades and shove him the rest of the way inside the door, scowls at Bruce when he’s all the way in.
“Just stay for an hour, reassure Steve that you’re making at least some effort,” Bruce leans into him to say.
“I feel like I’m the only one making an effort,” Tony grumbles.
“I think Steve deserves it since you basically cut off all communication with him,” Bruce says, rolls his eyes when Tony’s mouth drops open. “Are you really surprised that Clint told me?”
After a moment, Tony has to admit to himself that no, he’s really not.
They follow Steve moving through the press of people, confident that his size will encourage people to move out of his way. Steve used to have to be sandwiched between him and Bruce or Clint whenever they went somewhere with a lot of people. Now crowds part for him like Moses parting the sea and Tony is left trailing in his wake.
They reach a table with a couple of occupied chairs and Steve grins, claps an impressively big man on the shoulder who beams and stands to hug him roughly. There’s another man, dark and handsome in a movie-star way and two small, pretty women.
There are introductions all around and Tony finds himself shuffled onto a stool between Natasha and one of the women, Darcy. On Darcy’s other side is Thor’s girlfriend Jane, then Thor and the movie-star, who turns out to be a Bucky. Clint and Bruce head for the bar when they get everyone’s drink requests and Tony watches them go, thinks sourly one hour and I’m outta here.
--
“I’m starting to worry about alcohol poisoning,” Natasha says. She’s got her head sideways, possibly because Tony’s resting his own on the table. It became too heavy for him to hold up about ten minutes ago.
“I’m fine,” Tony says, mostly without slurring which just goes to prove his point. When Natasha moves her head, he can see that Steve and Bucky are still leaning into each other like they’ve been doing for the past hour. Steve looks serious and Bucky has a hand resting on his shoulder and Tony really, really wants to go over there and smack it off.
If he thought he could get up without falling on his face he might just do it.
“C’mon buddy, time to go home,” Bruce says and Tony’s tugged away from the table, propped up by Bruce on one side and he finds Darcy under his other arm.
“Has it been an hour yet?” Tony asks blearily and Bruce frowns for a second, before he huffs, apparently amused.
“It’s been four.”
“Oh good, wouldn’t want Steve to think I was aban...ab... leaving him all alone,” Tony says, flails a resentful hand in Steve’s direction, who’s managed to drag his attention away from tall, dark and annoying for a few precious seconds.
“You guys need a hand?” Steve asks, starting to rise.
“Nah, we got it,” Darcy says and Tony wants to protest about being manhandled but he doesn’t quite manage it. Steve lowers back to his seat, but slowly, something undefined on his features.
Outside Darcy hails a cab while Bruce holds Tony upright. Bruce carefully lowers Tony in when one pulls over, hesitates about getting in himself and Tony watches Darcy smirk and then pull a pen from somewhere and write something on Bruce’s palm.
“You stud,” Tony burbles when Bruce finally shoves him over enough to follow him into the cab.
--
"You're violating the NGF rule," Tony hisses, having been herded by Bruce into the kitchen the next Friday night.
"Darcy's not my... wait, you think maybe she is?" Bruce is totally missing the point in his obvious excitement.
"Bruce!"
"We made the No Girlfriend rule when we were thirteen, and also before we knew that seventy five percent of us were gay. I feel a little discriminated against," Bruce says, throwing his hands out and his voice going shrill.
"We'll amend the rule."
"Darcy made food."
"You can't... what kind of food?" Tony asks, because made food isn't really something he's familiar with. They have take out most nights, eat leftovers of said take outs during the day. Sometimes Tony will splash out and get them a bunch of catered meals they can freeze and nuke later to stave off stuff like scurvy but the warehouse kitchen is basically used as a meeting point and for coffee but not any actual food preparation..
"I don't know, she brought breads and made dips and stuff."
"Dips? Is she trying to sneak vegetables into us? She looks like the kind of person that would try to infect others with the food pyramid."
"I'm pretty sure one of the dips is made from melted down toblerones."
Tony's a little derailed at that. "Oh, well, that's... okay. If she doesn't make a peep and her food is delicious I will think about, don't look that excited, I said think about adding a Darcy caveat to the NGF rule."
There is a dip that turns out to be made of toblerones, which is awesome, but there's also some that look suspiciously healthy and are horrifying colors like green and orange. They turn out to be delicious too so Tony just ignores the fact that there is some kind of plant derivative in them and uses corn chips as a spoon to cancel out any kind of health benefits.
Darcy does peep, but she seems to have a natural knack for picking the appropriate time to do it, asking Bruce questions or chatting amiably to Clint or Phil when there is a break in the action, never interrupting a scene. She even gets Tony talking about the little robot that has been rolling around the warehouse that he'd been tinkering with in his spare time when the others are discussing strategy.
It probably helps that Steve’s there and doesn’t seem inclined to have them do anything but game which improves Tony’s mood greatly.
Best of all, she falls asleep about three hours in with her head on Natasha's thigh and Clint's plush Cthulhu clutched to her chest and doesn't wake up no matter how much noise they make.
When the dawn light is filtering through the windows, Darcy smiles fuzzily at them all as Bruce tucks her under his arm and leads her out to put her in a cab. She pauses on the way out, leans over to tug at Tony's sleeve so she can reach his cheek to kiss and says, "I had a nice time, thank you."
When Bruce gets back inside, Tony rolls his eyes and says, "Yeah, okay, she can stay."
Steve rises and stretches, the only one not able to just stumble to bed in the same building. “Suppose I better head out too,” he says. Tony wrenches his attention from the way Steve’s shirt is pulling across his chest.
“Oh, right,” Tony says, swears under his breath at Bruce who nudges him with a pointed elbow in the back as he heads for his room. “I mean, you’re welcome to... stay?”
Steve hesitates with one arm in his jacket. “Stay?”
“Y’know... on the couch? Catch a couple of hours sleep.”
Steve’s eyes search Tony’s face for a second, before he gets his other arm in his jacket. “Nah, that’s okay. This place is pretty close to my Nana’s apartment. I think I’ll walk it.”
“Sure, yeah,” Tony agrees, watches Steve shuffle out, looking bleary and achingly adorable.
When Tony shuffles back to his own room, he rips the post-it off his door that says wuss with maybe a touch too much vehemence.
Art byle_prince_lutin
Part Two
Tony had purchased an entire warehouse, converted it into apartments and moved his friends (Barton and Banner) and frenemies (Coulson) in so he didn't have to deal with this exact scenario.
"Don't have a heart attack, geez," Clint says, looking unrepentant. "You'll like Nat once you get to know her."
"That'll be a first because I don't actually like anyone," Tony says, raising in eyebrow. "Especially you right now."
"She's cool. She provides a dynamic which we're sorely lacking."
"I'm cool."
"You're a dick, actually. But that's okay because so am I."
"Remind me again why I let you live here rent free?" Tony asks archly.
"She's into gaming but she hasn't had a regular group for years. She was really interested when I told her about your campaign. She's a little bit scary but in a nice way. Plus, it's always good to have a girl on the team at cons."
"Are you implying that her gender will be advantageous when it comes to procuring gaming trophies?" Tony asks, then throws a hand out behind himself to the wall that is basically covered shelves of gaming trophies of all types. "It's because you don't like playing the girl characters, right?"
"Every game! I get stuck with being the chick in every game."
"That's because you're the pretty one."
"Please," Bruce huffs, scooting past them into the kitchen, talking around a sherbert straw he's chewing. "Everyone knows I'm the pretty one."
"Everyone knows you're the deluded one," Clint throws at him and Tony rolls his eyes, then catches Natasha tossing something from hand to hand.
"That giant plushie D20 is not regulation!" he shrills.
"What's wrong with it?"
"It's got arms and legs."
"Relax. We just picked it up from the bargain bin in the Tin Soldier when we were getting her real dice. I got a plushie Cthulhu and a plushie Ebola." Clint holds up something that looks like a fluffy brown worm with big cartoon eyes and bats Tony's nose with it.
"I'm still vexed."
"Who uses that as a word in a real sentence?" Clint asks, shaking his head.
"Just let her play," Bruce interjects, bypassing them again, this time balancing a huge bowl of popcorn on top of a six pack of cola. "We've had a gap in our team since Steve left and I'm sick of the weird ringers we keep getting lumped with at cons."
"We don't even know if she'll want to go conning with us or just wants to come to the Friday nights," Tony gripes, sensing he's losing which he never likes.
"She'll come," Clint says, grinning. "She was in when I told her our team name was The Drunken Dwarves."
"Fine," Tony grits out between his teeth.
"Cool-"
"One caveat though. She does her own character sheet. I don't want Phil helping her. He's such a rules lawyer and he's always way too powerful. I don't want two of them."
Art by
le_prince_lutinTony works in a little coffee house called Bean Man and while some would think that was a waste of his brain, Tony likes to believe it's a valid life choice. Thanks to a hefty bank balance care of Howard Stark and Stark Industries which he is paid not to frequent, Tony doesn't necessarily have to work for a living.
He just likes the routine.
He also likes making the angry vein pop out in his boss' forehead because Fury by name, Fury by nature.
"You got time to lean, you got time for me to kick your ass!" Fury calls from the kitchen, spotting Tony using the counter to prop himself up in the lull between the before-work zombie rush and the mid-morning crazy eyes crowd.
"I don't think that's the saying," Tony calls back, smirks to himself when he actually hears Fury growl. The bell over the front door tinkles and Tony straightens, slumps again when he sees it's just Phil, looking harried but pristine as usual.
No one actually knows what Phil does for a living. Tony would like to think that he puts a suit on everyday to panhandle but that's probably not the case.
"Coffee," Phil says. "I'll take it in an IV if you have one so it reaches my veins sooner."
"Bad day?"
"I'm a misfiled report away from nuking the site from orbit." Phil nods, scowls when Tony dawdles over to the coffee machine. "Or a slow coffee," he amends and Tony throws him a yeah, yeah hand wave over his shoulder.
"Hold your horses. Hill called in sick so I'm dealing with everything on my own today." Tony has to grin to himself when Phil passes an incredulous gaze around the nearly empty shop, one booth taken by an elderly gentleman who's nursing a tea and doesn't look to be needing anything else for a few hours at least.
"Whenever I'm actually away from you I start thinking you're not as bad as all that, then I see you again and am reminded that you are." Phil's the only one who actually pays Tony rent, his idea. Tony thinks it's just so he doesn't have anything to hold over Phil or stop the insults.
"Did you get the letter about the upcoming apartment inspection?" Tony asks mildly, watching Phil fume through the reflection in the coffee machine.
"The one you tacked politely to my door with my replica Gimli axe? It was a little hard to miss."
"If you signed the same leasing agreement as Clint and Bruce, you wouldn't have to have inspections you know?" Tony says, turning and offering Phil the large mug. Phil takes it, sniffs it suspiciously, but there is one thing Tony won't mess with and that's a man's coffee.
"I read Clint's leasing agreement. There's no way I'm ever signing a document like that."
"Spoil sport," Tony grumbles as he watches Phil inhale half the coffee he was handed, no thought for delicate mouth skin apparent. "Wow, do you have a giant coffee callous in your throat? Even I can't shotgun it like that straight from the machine."
"If I thought it would reach my brain faster, I'd pour it into my eyeballs," Phil says, hugs the remaining half of his coffee in the takeaway mug to his chest like Gollum with the one ring. "Hey, isn't that Natasha?"
Tony's gaze jerks over Phil's shoulder as the door tinkles again and Natasha enters the place, clutching a folder. Clint was right, Natasha was the kind of cutting that Tony could appreciate and he did find himself grudgingly liking her despite himself.
That didn't mean he wanted her invading every part of his life.
"Coffee?" he asks, as Phil says hello and scrambles out, sipping at the last of his coffee a little more sedately.
"No. I came in because there was a help wanted sign in the window," Natasha says, waves a hand vaguely in the direction of said sign then looks back at Tony.
"That's been there since two thousand and three," Tony says, which might not be exactly true but it has been there since Tony started two years before and other than himself and Hill, no one else has been able to survive the interview process. He figures his charisma and Hill's stubbornness got them through but he's seen at least a dozen college students actually crying after meeting with Fury, never to be seen again when they fled.
"So, there's no job?"
"There is," Tony says, ignores Natasha's confused look in favor of yelling for Fury that he had a visitor. "May the force be with you," Tony says cryptically when Natasha makes her way towards the kitchen and Fury's glowering countenance.
Art by
le_prince_lutin"A man's dice bag says a lot about him. Mine says distinguished, worldly, classy. Yours says dirty gym sock tied with a shoelace. Are you happy with that?"
"I think you'll find yours says pretentious dickwad," Clint grumbles, leaning over the glass case with the collection of dice bags. Tony watches him eying a black leather one, so predictable, then move across to the dice themselves.
Tony has spent years putting his dice collection together. They are a perfect balance of color, weight and wear to give him maximum chance for critical successes. Clint, however, every time he loses one or three of his dice, which he manages to do every game, mostly because he resorts to throwing them at the others or Tony when a roll doesn't go his way, just grabs the plastic tube with a full set.
Heathen.
"-so it'll be good to have Steve back, right?" Clint is saying and Tony thinks maybe he missed a part of that sentence.
"What?"
"Steve? His Nana's sick or something. You know he's coming back, right?" Clint finally drags his attention away from the dice case and his eyes narrow. "We just all assumed you guys were writing flowery love letters to each other while he'd been gone."
"I... what?" Tony repeats, blinking and wonders if the weird rushing noise he's hearing is the first sign of a stroke.
"Y'know, tiny, blonde, always with a cold Steve? He's only been gone a year, man. Even someone as self-absorbed as you couldn't have forgotten him."
"I... no, I didn't forget him," Tony says, grimaces when he sounds a little more fervent about that than he would have liked. Of course he hadn’t forgotten Steve. He just... after a couple of emails and a letter he'd re-written about a thousand times that he never sent, he'd kind of broken off contact.
It had been too... something. He hadn't really wanted to analyze it.
Clint's looking at him funny. "It's good that he's coming back, right? You didn't say anything you couldn't come back from when he was leaving, did you?"
"What are you talking about? He moved away, end of story. He's coming back, awesome. Maybe I'll get someone that won't stiff me when it's time to pay for pizza."
"Oh my god, it was an off-pay week. Are you never going to let that go?" Clint demands, peeved, and thankfully distracted. Tony breathes a small sigh of relief when Clint stalks away.
Clint never stays mad for long. He comes back a few moments later gripping an expansion pack, reading the back. "Bruce said he ran into him about a month back when he went to that convention in Kansas. Said he got bigger."
"Who?" Tony asks.
Clint rolls his eyes, looks up. "Steve. Bruce said he didn't even recognise him."
"Oh, well, I suppose he was due a growth spurt sooner or later, poor guy," Tony muses, still a little thrown by the whole topic. He'd been slowly but surely resigning himself to the fact that Steve Rogers was out of his life, that he wouldn't hear Steve's wheezy little laugh ever again, see his big earnest blue eyes.
That it was probably all on him didn't escape his attention.
"Man, I honestly thought you'd be the first to know," Clint continues, oblivious to Tony's inner guilt. Steve had tried maintaining contact, his emails getting less jovial and more confused the longer Tony ignored them until Steve had stopped writing altogether, the silence telling.
"He might be mad at me," Tony admits glumly.
"He'll get over it. It's Steve. The guy's a walking marshmallow." Clint nudges Tony towards the register with his expansion pack.
"I was a bit of a dick."
"Imagine my shock."
"I mean, I thought he wasn't going to come back, like ever."
"So you, what? Had a tantrum about it?"
"Sort of."
"You're hopeless," Clint says sagely, before smiling and handing his money over to Hannah behind the register.
"I'm aware."
Like he's summoned just by being talked about, when they get back to the warehouse Steve is there.
"Steve!" Clint crows, looking delighted and leaping at him. He wraps arms and legs around Steve's body like a velcro monkey and Steve, who last time Tony had seen him had been a foot shorter and delicate enough that a strong breeze sent him stumbling, hoisted Clint off the ground. When he was set down Clint was blushing and chuckling, trying to negate his complete ridiculousness by punching Steve heartily in the bicep.
Steve is smiling, large and beautiful but it dims a little when he spots Tony hovering in the doorway.
"So, steroids?" Tony blurts, because of course that's the first thing he'll say when he hasn't seen the guy in a year. Clint's right, he's a dick.
"Nah, horse tranquilizers," Steve says and bizarrely, it's the right kind of horrible to break the tension between them and have Steve smiling again, like it's a relief that Tony's exactly the way Steve left him, eternally inappropriate. "Long time no see."
"We were right here." Tony winces, because he sounds bitter. Steve just kind of huffs and shakes his head like he expected this kind of treatment and then drops back onto the couch next to Bruce, showing him god knows what on his phone.
Clint takes the opportunity to punch Tony in the arm as well, then shuffles over to join Steve and Bruce, making appropriately interested noises at whatever Steve is now showing them both.
"So, pictures of the boyfriend?" Tony asks, can't really understand why he's ramped up to Defcon Ten on the dick scale today.
"The art at a show I got to work on," Steve says without looking up, still dismissive of Tony like you'd ignore a kid having a meltdown on the floor. Fair enough too, since that's kind of what Tony feels like he's doing, just in a more dignified, passive-aggressive adult way.
"In New York," Tony says, waggles his hands, then tucks them in his pockets. Now all three of them are ignoring him and he puts up with it for about three seconds before he flounces, no wait, strides manfully out of the room and heads for the kitchen and precious coffee that will never, ever leave him without so much as a by your leave.
Tony feels the itch between his shoulder blades that means someone's standing behind him, starts to say, "Look, I'm really sor-" but cuts off the apology when he turns and finds it's Bruce that's followed him into the kitchen and not Steve. "Oh, did Steve-?"
"He left."
Tony tries to bite down on the disappointment he feels but he mostly fails by the way Bruce is looking at him over his glasses.
"You want to tell me what that was about?" Bruce asks, tilting his head. The main problem with being friends with the same people pretty much your whole life is that they can tell when something's up, will call you on being a brat if they need to.
"No," Tony says peevishly, crossing his arms and staring at his shoes.
"I know we joke about it a lot but... was there something, y'know, between you and Steve?" he asks so very carefully.
"God no," Tony chokes out, swipes his coffee cup off the counter and tries to hide his face in it. "Nothing, no, nothing like that ever happened."
"Did you want it to?" Bruce asks, which is a whole other question. Tony must take too long to deny it because Bruce's expression goes all soft and sympathetic. "Tony, maybe you should-"
"Do absolutely nothing about it. Yes, that's an excellent plan and what I intend to do."
"Tony, that's not-"
"Bruce, honey bear, brain of my brain. Please stop trying to have a heart to heart with me before I break out in hives."
"You're deflecting."
"Yep. Still doesn't change the fact that I don't want to talk about this, with anyone, ever."
"Maybe you should talk to Steve. He's been gone a year and all the extra terrible one-night stands you've had in that time, yes, we noticed, haven't gotten whatever this is out of your system which means it's serious." Bruce is frustratingly reasonable when he wants to be.
"Like a heart attack," Tony gripes, which is basically true. He'd thought maybe distance and time would heal whatever damage Steve had done to his delicate places, had even been a tiny bit relieved that Steve had left because he'd been nursing this whatever it was since they were both sixteen and it had left him more than a little weary.
Tony remembers lying next to Steve on his crappy narrow bed in his Nana's apartment, their shoulders pressed together and Steve talking with his hands, making sweeps in the air with fine, delicate fingers. Tony remembers feeling the urge to just roll over and kiss Steve soundly.
He remembers being scared to death by the impulse.
"You don't know what he feels."
"I know Steve left which means he probably feels exactly nothing."
"You could try asking him."
"And have him be all sweet and sympathetic and earnest at me? No thanks, I'd rather do without that."
"You could at least be civil. Steve thinks you're still mad at him for going," Bruce urges and Tony scowls and huffs but finally relents.
"Okay, alright. I'll send him an invite to next week's game."
"That's a start," Bruce says magnanimously, then steals the rest of Tony's coffee because his friends are awesome in some ways but also completely suck in others.
Tony is all of ten minutes late to Bean Man the next morning, but apparently that's enough time for Natasha and Hill to become best friends forever. Natasha is smiling which is a little unsettling because it’s like seeing a shark smile right before it takes a bite out of you just for curiosity's sake and Hill is laughing which... Tony didn't think she was even capable of it.
"Stark," Hill greets, nodding efficiently, her laughter drying up.
"Queen Scarypants," Tony greets in turn and Hill rolls her eyes and turns back to the coffee machine, Natasha's attention on her as she runs through the various settings. Tony, thoroughly ignored, what is it with that lately, meanders into the kitchen where Fury is kneading dough.
Or, more accurately torturing the ever-living hell out of dough.
"Are you losing your unsettling mojo?" Tony asks, watching Fury work. Everything he makes tastes great, but he's apparently never heard of having love as an ingredient. Instead, Tony can practically taste a little bit of anger in everything Fury produces.
"Meaning?" Fury grunts.
"We have a new employee instead of someone moving states and changing their name so you are never ever able to track them down again."
"You're a funny guy," Fury says without inflection or looking up.
"No, really. That means we're at full staff capacity doesn't it? That's just... I don't think we can take the Help Wanted sign down, it's been in the window so long I think it's fused with the glass."
"We still need someone to wash dishes," Fury says after an actual thoughtful pause.
"Oh well, that's alright then. The balance is restored," Tony says and wanders back into the main shop area to start flipping the chairs upright and set the sidewalk tables outside.
He's struggling with one of the outdoor umbrellas when another set of hands appears, helping to click the stubborn thing into place. "Thanks," Tony grunts as Natasha steps aside for Tony to drop the sandbags onto the umbrella's feet to keep it in place.
"No problem," Natasha says, looks at Tony with her head tilted. "Is this okay?"
"What?"
"Me being here," Natasha says, her hands fluttering around herself then towards the store.
"Of course," Tony says immediately, a little uneasy that he's been unreasonably rude to someone that is, well, a little scary, but also perfectly nice.
"I'm sorry about crashing your game the other night," Natasha continues. "I thought Clint had cleared it with you."
"No, it's really fine," Tony says, feeling like a bigger douche by the minute as Natasha basically apologises for existing. "You were good, you fit in well and you accidentally killed Clint your first game. All positives in my book."
Natasha chuckles, squeezes Tony's arm. "Thanks. I was thinking maybe I'd overstepped or something."
"Nah, I got other stuff going on," Tony dismisses. "You want to learn how to use the coffee machine?"
"Maria just showed me." For a second Tony blanks, then realises Natasha is talking about Hill. Sometimes he forgets she has a first name like everyone else.
"On the contrary, Hill just showed you how to be frustrated by a machine that will not give you what you want, if the way she swears at it every day is any indication. I will show you how to coerce Dummy into giving you the goods."
"The coffee machine's name is Dummy?"
"Seemed appropriate at the time."
Tony's feeling pretty good that he's grown as a person, accepting Natasha into his life and all, so he's not prepared for two drastic changes in one week which is why he probably overreacts, just a little.
"No way." The others are all staring at him as he bends the DM screen in his hands back and forth, scowling.
"Tony, just this once," Steve says.
"You go. We've already got plans, set in stone," Tony says, sweeps a hand towards the door and also sidesteps Bruce's attempt to kick him.
"Everyone agreed to go," Clint says, hesitant, looking between Steve and Tony with concern plain on his features.
"Every Friday night, every Friday night, we game until dawn. You're allowed to skip it if there are family obligations, work obligations or you submit a request in writing at least four weeks in advance. We don't just decide to go out drinking halfway through instead to meet up with your new work buddies. This is not a democracy, it's a cheerocracy and I'm overruling you all."
"Do we have to ban you from Kirsten Dunst movies again?" Bruce groans, smacking a hand over his face.
"We've already played a few hours and I didn't think it would be a huge thing to wrap up early. Thor and Bucky are good guys and I thought you all would get along-"
“What kind of person is named Thor?” When Tony sees everyone start to shuffle around and pack up he shrills, "No one's going anywhere." He blinks because even he can admit that that might have been a tad too much.
"Can I see you in the kitchen a moment?" Steve asks, hooking Tony by the elbow and not really giving him a choice when he tows him from the living room. Clint, Phil, Bruce and Natasha watch them go with wide eyes.
"I forgot what an inflexible bastard you are." It's weird hearing Steve curse. He was raised in the time warp that was his Nana's apartment and became bully fodder not just because of his size, but because he said things like gosh, darn and swell unironically.
"I'm not inflexible," Tony says. "There was that unfortunate episode when we were eighteen that we shall never speak of."
"What... Tony! It's not like we killed someone. We played Vampire: The Masquerade."
"Never speak of," Tony repeats with a delicate shudder.
"As I said, it's not like we didn't play. I just wanted us all to go out and do something social."
"This is social," Tony grumbles.
"This is the opposite of social."
"This has been our Friday night plans since we were twelve. It's... reassuring and absolute. You can't just come back here and start changing everything."
"I'm not changing everything. I'm just trying to get you guys out of this place to meet new people before you find yourselves all attached to each other with mould."
Tony pulls a face, because that is not a pleasant image. "Yeah, so, what? Tonight it'll be playing for three hours then going out. It's a slippery slope. Before you know it, everyone starts thinking that their Friday nights are free and makes other plans and we never play again."
"You're overreacting."
"So's your face."
"Tony... that doesn't even make sense."
"Neither does your face."
"Tony, it's just this week, I swear. It's the only night both Thor and I have off work together for a month. C'mon, please?" It's completely unfair the way Steve's eyes go big and liquid like that.
Tony crosses his arms, uncrosses them, scowls and finally throws his hands up in defeat. "Fine!"
Asgard is about as awful as was suggested from the garish outer neon facade. Tony balks, feels firm hands plant on his shoulder blades and shove him the rest of the way inside the door, scowls at Bruce when he’s all the way in.
“Just stay for an hour, reassure Steve that you’re making at least some effort,” Bruce leans into him to say.
“I feel like I’m the only one making an effort,” Tony grumbles.
“I think Steve deserves it since you basically cut off all communication with him,” Bruce says, rolls his eyes when Tony’s mouth drops open. “Are you really surprised that Clint told me?”
After a moment, Tony has to admit to himself that no, he’s really not.
They follow Steve moving through the press of people, confident that his size will encourage people to move out of his way. Steve used to have to be sandwiched between him and Bruce or Clint whenever they went somewhere with a lot of people. Now crowds part for him like Moses parting the sea and Tony is left trailing in his wake.
They reach a table with a couple of occupied chairs and Steve grins, claps an impressively big man on the shoulder who beams and stands to hug him roughly. There’s another man, dark and handsome in a movie-star way and two small, pretty women.
There are introductions all around and Tony finds himself shuffled onto a stool between Natasha and one of the women, Darcy. On Darcy’s other side is Thor’s girlfriend Jane, then Thor and the movie-star, who turns out to be a Bucky. Clint and Bruce head for the bar when they get everyone’s drink requests and Tony watches them go, thinks sourly one hour and I’m outta here.
“I’m starting to worry about alcohol poisoning,” Natasha says. She’s got her head sideways, possibly because Tony’s resting his own on the table. It became too heavy for him to hold up about ten minutes ago.
“I’m fine,” Tony says, mostly without slurring which just goes to prove his point. When Natasha moves her head, he can see that Steve and Bucky are still leaning into each other like they’ve been doing for the past hour. Steve looks serious and Bucky has a hand resting on his shoulder and Tony really, really wants to go over there and smack it off.
If he thought he could get up without falling on his face he might just do it.
“C’mon buddy, time to go home,” Bruce says and Tony’s tugged away from the table, propped up by Bruce on one side and he finds Darcy under his other arm.
“Has it been an hour yet?” Tony asks blearily and Bruce frowns for a second, before he huffs, apparently amused.
“It’s been four.”
“Oh good, wouldn’t want Steve to think I was aban...ab... leaving him all alone,” Tony says, flails a resentful hand in Steve’s direction, who’s managed to drag his attention away from tall, dark and annoying for a few precious seconds.
“You guys need a hand?” Steve asks, starting to rise.
“Nah, we got it,” Darcy says and Tony wants to protest about being manhandled but he doesn’t quite manage it. Steve lowers back to his seat, but slowly, something undefined on his features.
Outside Darcy hails a cab while Bruce holds Tony upright. Bruce carefully lowers Tony in when one pulls over, hesitates about getting in himself and Tony watches Darcy smirk and then pull a pen from somewhere and write something on Bruce’s palm.
“You stud,” Tony burbles when Bruce finally shoves him over enough to follow him into the cab.
"You're violating the NGF rule," Tony hisses, having been herded by Bruce into the kitchen the next Friday night.
"Darcy's not my... wait, you think maybe she is?" Bruce is totally missing the point in his obvious excitement.
"Bruce!"
"We made the No Girlfriend rule when we were thirteen, and also before we knew that seventy five percent of us were gay. I feel a little discriminated against," Bruce says, throwing his hands out and his voice going shrill.
"We'll amend the rule."
"Darcy made food."
"You can't... what kind of food?" Tony asks, because made food isn't really something he's familiar with. They have take out most nights, eat leftovers of said take outs during the day. Sometimes Tony will splash out and get them a bunch of catered meals they can freeze and nuke later to stave off stuff like scurvy but the warehouse kitchen is basically used as a meeting point and for coffee but not any actual food preparation..
"I don't know, she brought breads and made dips and stuff."
"Dips? Is she trying to sneak vegetables into us? She looks like the kind of person that would try to infect others with the food pyramid."
"I'm pretty sure one of the dips is made from melted down toblerones."
Tony's a little derailed at that. "Oh, well, that's... okay. If she doesn't make a peep and her food is delicious I will think about, don't look that excited, I said think about adding a Darcy caveat to the NGF rule."
There is a dip that turns out to be made of toblerones, which is awesome, but there's also some that look suspiciously healthy and are horrifying colors like green and orange. They turn out to be delicious too so Tony just ignores the fact that there is some kind of plant derivative in them and uses corn chips as a spoon to cancel out any kind of health benefits.
Darcy does peep, but she seems to have a natural knack for picking the appropriate time to do it, asking Bruce questions or chatting amiably to Clint or Phil when there is a break in the action, never interrupting a scene. She even gets Tony talking about the little robot that has been rolling around the warehouse that he'd been tinkering with in his spare time when the others are discussing strategy.
It probably helps that Steve’s there and doesn’t seem inclined to have them do anything but game which improves Tony’s mood greatly.
Best of all, she falls asleep about three hours in with her head on Natasha's thigh and Clint's plush Cthulhu clutched to her chest and doesn't wake up no matter how much noise they make.
When the dawn light is filtering through the windows, Darcy smiles fuzzily at them all as Bruce tucks her under his arm and leads her out to put her in a cab. She pauses on the way out, leans over to tug at Tony's sleeve so she can reach his cheek to kiss and says, "I had a nice time, thank you."
When Bruce gets back inside, Tony rolls his eyes and says, "Yeah, okay, she can stay."
Steve rises and stretches, the only one not able to just stumble to bed in the same building. “Suppose I better head out too,” he says. Tony wrenches his attention from the way Steve’s shirt is pulling across his chest.
“Oh, right,” Tony says, swears under his breath at Bruce who nudges him with a pointed elbow in the back as he heads for his room. “I mean, you’re welcome to... stay?”
Steve hesitates with one arm in his jacket. “Stay?”
“Y’know... on the couch? Catch a couple of hours sleep.”
Steve’s eyes search Tony’s face for a second, before he gets his other arm in his jacket. “Nah, that’s okay. This place is pretty close to my Nana’s apartment. I think I’ll walk it.”
“Sure, yeah,” Tony agrees, watches Steve shuffle out, looking bleary and achingly adorable.
When Tony shuffles back to his own room, he rips the post-it off his door that says wuss with maybe a touch too much vehemence.
Art by
le_prince_lutinPart Two