We're Here Because It's Open

By: InitialA

Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Marvel universe.

Author's Note: Someone on Tumblr requested an ended-up-at-Denny's AU. We're combining that with a college AU—fairly AU, you'll find, as I'm using my alma mater as the pseudo-setting, and there's no way that Tony or Bruce would have gone to a state school. Steve would have liked it though.

The weekends before finals were traditionally a blowout. Sick of studying all week and cramming in last-minute research papers, the group had decided to throw caution to the wind and spend Saturday night imbibing heroic amounts of alcohol, sharking some freshmen at the pool table, and dancing until the bar shut down. At last call, Bruce had rightly suggested they leave before the crowds stumbled home. It was snowing and icy as they began their trek; the "party buses" slushed past them back to campus—taxis were an uncommon sight in this small Midwestern college town, so some of the townies had decided to bring in some extra money by ferrying drunk college kids back and forth. Natasha's feet flew out from under her and she screamed with laughter as Steve and Clint barely saved her from a broken tailbone. "Oh my God! You guys are totally my heroes!"

"And she says she can hold her liquor," Clint said drily.

"I am like, so sober right now. You're just jealous!" Natasha shot back; she slurred over the 's's a bit, making Bruce snort.

"And you turn into a girl from the valley," he added.

"WHAT-EVERRRRR," she shouted at the sky, and then started laughing again. "It's snowing!"

"Been snowing for about twenty minutes now, princess," Tony said, brushing the accumulation out of Pepper's hair.

"But loooooook!" Natasha tugged on Steve's scarf. "Look look look, the lights and the snow!"

Steve looped his arm around her waist, more or less to keep her upright as they walked back to campus. He looked at where she was pointing; Christmas lights strung around someone's snow-covered bushes. "I see them, Nat. They're very pretty."

"You should… you should take a picture. And then paint it. For your final project. It'll win first place!"

"You don't win prizes for finals. You just get good grades."

"Then you'll get an A-plus-plus-plus!"

She slipped again as she drew out that last 's', and almost took Steve out with her. Clint helped them back up. "Stark, how are you not this bad? You matched her shot for shot."

Tony grinned. "All in the metabolism, my friend."

Pepper rolled her eyes. "He's putting all his weight on me, don't let him fool you."

"Babe, it's because you're a sturdy pillar of strong… things. Engineering. Physics. Weight stuff."

"I stand corrected," Clint grinned as Pepper punched him in the arm.

"I am Russian, we do not get drunk!" Natasha declared loudly; the sidewalk was so icy that Steve was kind of just dragging her along next to him now, instead of letting her walk.

He laughed. "When is the last time you were in Russia? Fifteen years ago?"

She stuck her tongue out at him. "For that, you have to carry me," she said.

Steve raised his eyebrows. "I can't walk in this and carry you."

"Piggyback ride!" She tugged incessantly on his jacket, until he finally relented. She was tiny, a dance major; he supposed it wouldn't be too bad. If nothing else, her dance finals had been the week before, so if he fell and injured them both, she wouldn't be punished for that. She settled comfortably against him; Steve hoped she wouldn't need to puke anytime soon.

"Glad to see we're putting the most athletic art student ever to good use," Clint teased.

Steve grumbled. "Exercise is good for you!"

"He's still hoping to get out of life drawing by being the model," Tony said.

"Life drawing was two semesters ago."

"Extra credit then."

"Don't they pay the models?" Pepper wondered.

"They also tend to prefer average people," Bruce chimed in. "Perfectly sculpted abs are distracting."

Everyone looked at him. The physics major shrugged. "What? They are."

"Thanks?" Steve asked.

"Anytime."

"Oh my God Denny's can we go to Denny's let's go to Denny's!" Natasha shouted, tugging Steve's hair to turn his head in a bizarre mockery of horseback riding. "To Denny's!"

"No one even likes Denny's, Nat," Clint complained.

"I like Denny's, you pretentious twatwaffle!" She shot back.

Tony snorted, dissolving into laughter. "Twatwaffle? Oh man, I'm going to have to remember that one…"

"Ow! Nat, not so hard!" Steve complained as Natasha continued to pull his head around by the hair.

"S'not what you said last weekend," she drawled, and then giggled.

Steve glared at the others. "There was nothing last weekend."

Tony stopped what he had been about to say, but the shit-eating grin lingered until Pepper pinched him. "Ow! Babe!"

"Don't you 'babe' me, don't tease him!'

"DENNY'S!" Natasha whined.

"Only those without hope left in their lives go to Denny's at two in the morning…" Bruce mumbled.

"It's finals week, bro, I'd say we've hit that point," Clint said. "Besides, isn't the big guy cooking tonight?"

'The big guy' was their friend Donald Blake, known only by his nickname of "Thor"—he played offensive tackle on the university's football team. He was also known for his perfection with any kind of cooking utensil, which made his weekends working midnights the must-attend diner in the tri-county area. As they trudged their way into the parking lot, however, it was clear to see that they were arriving before the rush—the diner was empty as they'd ever seen it.

"Hey guys," Darcy drawled from behind the register as they came in, shaking the snow off. "Come to keep us company?"

"Something like that," Bruce said.

"PANCAKES!" Natasha shouted, still pulling Steve's hair.

"Who did shots with the duchess again?" Darcy teased.

Tony tripped, almost breaking Pepper's neck in the process. "Guilty as charged. Is there a… no table. The other thing. Without the chairs that you can fall out of. A free one."

Darcy laughed. "Stark, for a damn genius you're an idiot when you're hammered. Yes, we can get you into a booth. I'm not sure if you should put him and the duchess on the inside so they don't hurt themselves, or on the outside so they can break for the bathroom," she added to the others.

"We'll figure it out," Pepper said.

In the end, seating them in the middle was the best. Natasha mostly leaned against Steve and made increasingly lewd comments about him while he calmly fed her blueberry pancakes in between stealing her bacon (Clint had called dibs on the eggs and toast); Tony ferociously declined being drunk, proving it by drawing out the schematics of his robotics and electrical engineering final on a stack of napkins with the kids menu crayons helpfully supplied by Darcy. (all of this was negated by the fact that when he sat up to explain the drawings, he would immediately need to put his head on Bruce or Pepper's shoulders because "Someone is making the goddamn room spin.")

"I love pancakes," Natasha declared an hour later as the fork clattered against the plate for the final time; she was firmly snuggled under Steve's arm—she'd threatened to tickle him if he didn't do it. "I love them. They're so… pancakeish. Why don't I eat pancakes all the time?"

"Because your instructors would make you run three miles around the football field," Pepper said, idly playing with Tony's hair; Tony was now laying on her lap, his feet on Bruce's lap.

"Oh. That's dumb. Dancing is dumb. I should quit and do something that lets me eat pancakes all the time."

Clint chuckled. "But you're so good at it. Think of it as a reward, a good semester equals pancake time."

"Ssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Natasha swatted blindly at him. Clint grabbed her hand to stop her, and she laced her fingers through his.

Steve turned slightly when he heard Darcy saying something. Thor came out of the kitchen, grinning at them. His braid was coming undone, a sign that his shift was almost up. "Friends of mine, fed and drunk at my hearth, how farest thee?"

"Oh God, someone remind me to hack the school database and get him out of those theatre classes," Tony's voice came up from somewhere under the table.

"Come on, dude, I've got to entertain myself somehow," Thor said, dropping the Shakespearian accent. "Besides, Darcy enables it."

"Because it's hilarious!" She called.

"Thor! You are my favorite!" Natasha announced. "My favorite person with muscles who cooks me pancakes! And pretty hair. You have such pretty hair. Pretty hair and muscles and pancakes. Who can probably kill someone if they weren't wearing pads? Yes. Pretty hair and muscles and pancakes and death."

"It's why Jane keeps me around," Thor grinned. "Glad you liked it, Tasha."

"I will refrain from any declarations of love, but it was damn near orgasmic," Tony said.

"Dude," Thor side-eyed him.

"Don't take it too personally. It's not that hard," Pepper said off-handedly.

"That's what she said!" Natasha, Bruce, and Clint chorused. Natasha dissolved into giggles.

"I fucking hate every one of you," Tony said.

"You don't," Pepper told him.

"I don't…"

"So," Thor grabbed a chair from a nearby table and swung it in front of him, sitting on it backwards, "what brings you to my humble abode on this fine, finals weekend night?"

Steve glanced down at the redhead leaning into him. "Nat's drunk."

The football player grinned. "No, tell me another."

"You know how she gets!"

"I do," Thor admitted. "Whiny and clingy and needy and hungry."

"I take it back. You are my least favorite."

"And temperamental."

"You are my least favorite and a jerkbutt."

"She's really coming up with the zingers tonight, isn't she?" Clint asked.

"Only the best from our girl," Steve said.

Bruce glanced out the window. "We should probably get going before the snow gets worse."

"And before these two get sick, or need a hangover cure," Clint added.

"Man, already?" Thor asked, pouting slightly.

Pepper patted his shoulder soothingly, her hand lingering on his bicep a little longer than necessary. "Sorry, big guy. Next time, when we remember to confiscate Tony's credit cards."

Tony protested while Natasha stuck her tongue out; however, she allowed herself to be carted out on Steve's back. Everyone threw some money on the table and said their goodbyes. Tony found he couldn't stand on his own, and needed both Clint and Bruce to be his human crutches.

No one fell on the way back to campus, which was a miracle in and of itself. The hardest part was crossing the railroad tracks that separated the townies from the college kids without falling over the rails, or getting caught in the act of an illegal crossing by the police. Somehow they managed. They found that Natasha had fallen asleep by the time they reached her apartment, and Pepper had to dig her keys out of her coat pocket. The tiny dancer didn't so much as budge as the keys were extracted and Steve and Pepper got her into bed; Pepper made sure she was still breathing. Before they left, Steve remembered to put a few ibuprofen and a glass of water on her bed stand, as well as leaving the trash can within reach.

Steve took over from Bruce and Clint as they left Natasha's building; they lived on campus still, while he shared a house with Tony and Pepper. They bid each other goodnight, and trudged through the growing snow in opposite directions. Steve had to poke Tony a few times in the gut to try and manage his own weight, and only received mumbled threats in response. "We're never letting him drink this much again," he declared.

Pepper only smiled and shook her head.

They only barely made it to the windmill in time for Tony's body to decide it had had enough; they left him to heave his regrets into the toilet, while Pepper said, "Part of me knows I should stay in our room to make sure he's still breathing in the morning, but I really don't want to wake up to puke-breath."

"I'd trade, but I don't love you or Tony that much," Steve said.

Pepper shoved him lightly, laughing. "My hero. Go to bed. Be obnoxiously loud in the morning, he deserves it."

"I'll invite the marching band over."

"Perfect."

There wasn't a marching band in the morning, but blaring his Louis Armstrong playlist through Tony's amps got almost the same reaction.