Marvel Bland Headcanon: It's agreed upon by the entire science community to never sit Fitzsimmons at the same table as Tony, Bruce, Jane and Betty at a conference again. Ever. Steve/Tony/Pepper pairing.

AN: I had to do this one because Tony is forever being written as the instigator in science fuckery and Bruce and the others are the voices of reason. The role reversal amused me. The lyrics to Barbie Girl obviously do not belong to me.

Steve leaned back in his seat, a glass of water in his hand as he listened to the conversation flowing around him. Or, really, he made a pretense of listening, since he couldn't fathom even half of what they were saying. Luckily, he was surrounded by friends, so he wasn't worried that he'd inadvertently offend somebody by not paying any attention to the science and technobabble going on around him; they all knew Steve had little interest in the topic at hand.

Not to mention how much he hated the small talk and the wining and dining that came with these conferences, evidenced by how it was usually Pepper that was Tony's plus one at these events. She, at the very least, didn't have a seventy-year technology deficit to make up for.

Unfortunately, at the last minute, Pepper was called away due to a problem at one of the California facilities and couldn't make it back in time. Hence, Steve sitting here, bored out of his mind, making sure that Tony stayed out of trouble. Which would typically be a lot harder than it is tonight, but before they left, Steve promised all manner of naughty and debauched things if Tony behaved himself. And it seemed to be working thus far.

Steve glanced up when Tony made a disgruntled sound next to him. He shot him a questioning glance, but Tony's attention was riveted on something that Jane and Fitz, one of Coulson's baby agents, were sketching out on a napkin, and the random equations surrounding it.

Or well, he was sure they weren't random and had something to do with what they were talking about, but it was all Greek to him.

He looked away, and let his gaze bounce around the room, falling on the occasional person that he recognized and nodding at them. Sue Richards smiled wanly at the room in general and looked as if she were close to throttling her husband. Smiling to himself, Steve raised his glass once he caught her eye and nearly laughed at the grimace that she gave him in return.

At least he didn't have to deal with that brand of madness tonight.

Sighing, Steve reached his arms over his head and stretched, getting ready to tell Tony that he was going to slip away to the men's room before they brought out dinner, when he felt his lover tense beside him. He looked around hastily, wondering what had made Tony lock up like that when the man in question spoke.

"Uh guys," Tony said, trying to get FitzSimmons, Jane and Bruce's attention as he stared at their diagram with no small amount of horror. "Just thought I'd point out that this equation is wrong."

Tony pointed out the one in question, but no one was paying him any mind.

"And if we multiplied the…"

At that point, Fitz let out a long string of technical jargon that Steve knew he had no hope of pronouncing, let alone understanding. So, he didn't bother to parse it out. Frankly, he was more concerned with whatever had Tony worried enough that he looked as if World War III was imminent.

"No, seriously guys," Tony tried again, desperately trying to get the others' attention. "That's not going to work out like you're thinking."

"And then…" Jane continued, ignoring him much to Tony's exasperation, her eyes sparkling with a manic glee that worried Steve. Because that look on any one of his scientist friends' faces meant bad things were afoot. To see it reflected back in FitzSimmons eyes as well, had him wishing he'd brought his shield with him no matter what Pepper had said about leaving it behind.

Tony slammed his hand down on the table, and then waited, lips pursed with annoyance, for the others to look up from the item they'd been tinkering with between them. And where they'd gotten tools and the other gadgets, Steve didn't know, but it was highly worrying.

"No really, all you're going to succeed in doing is blowing the damned place to kingdom come if you continue in that vein."

Tony once again pointed out the equation in question and started to explain why it was flawed, but it went way over Steve's head. But even without a full understanding of what he was talking about, Steve was utterly convinced whatever was going on, it was going to end in disaster. And even if Tony was wrong, which he doubted, caution was well warranted if explosions were involved in any way.

Tony turned to Bruce at this point and gestured at him, expecting him to back him up. But Bruce looked between Tony and Jane, and then back at Tony and then back at Jane, tugging on his sleeves nervously, and then did something Steve didn't expect.

"Tony, I think Jane is the expert when it comes to traversable wormholes, the Einstein-Rosen Bridge and the Bifrost." Bruce looked between the parties hesitantly, wincing when Tony glared at him and Jane beamed and went back to the gadget. "Maybe you should let them do their thing."

And really, that was rich considering that Bruce had been far too wrapped up in Betty the entire time to even bother looking at the diagram in question.

"Excuse you?" Tony retorted, clearly offended that his genius had been called into question. "Did I not tell you that I read up on this shit during the Loki incident? That wasn't a joke. And right now they're about to make The Battle of New York look like a skirmish if they keep that up."

"You had one night to study it," Jane said a bit waspishly, obviously annoyed that her work was being questioned. "I've spent years on this; I think I know what I'm doing."

And granted, Jane was a brilliant woman and had been studying this for a long time; definitely much longer than Tony. But the thing is, Steve knows Tony. He knows how much time and effort Tony puts into understanding the surrounding world, and really, if Steve had to choose, he'd believe Tony over Jane any day.

"You know what, fine," Tony spat, holding his hands up in supposed supplication, but Steve could tell that he was genuinely worried and furious at being ignored. "Do what you want; but when it blows up in your face, and trust me it will, don't come whining to me. I wash my hands of this."

And with that, Tony sat back in his chair stiffly and looked away.

Steve reached over and took one hand in his and began rubbing small circles on the back with his thumb. He drew Tony's attention away from the others, peppering him with question after question about one of the demonstrations they'd seen earlier in the day until the tension in his shoulders drained increment by increment. He didn't relax completely, and occasionally he'd flick his gaze to the diagram, but otherwise, he did as he said he would. Ignored it.

But apparently, this was enough to make Bruce worry.

Bruce glanced warily between Tony and the diagram a couple of times, his face gray with concern as he well knew, after working intimately with Tony in the lab, that this was an unusual reaction for his friend, and finally piped up. "You know, it wouldn't hurt to back off on the power a bit." He raised his hands in front of him when Jane snorted. "I'm just saying, that you can still test the results at a fraction of the power and see if it works before going full scale. And really, this isn't the place to be doing this in the first place."

"Please, don't do me any favors," Tony sniped, his hackles rising and the tension in his shoulders coming back as he sneered at the others. "After all, what does it matter if we blow up a few hundred civilians along with ourselves. It's all in the name of science, right?"

Steve sighed and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, but agreed.

"And actually, make that an order," Steve said, speaking up for the first time. "I don't even know where you got any of this stuff, but if there is even a one percent chance that whatever you're building can explode, you will not risk it. As Tony said, there are civilians present."

Jane glared at Tony, but Steve just arched a brow and stared her down.

"Fine," she huffed, reconfiguring something in her diagram.

"Wonderful." Tony sat back and rolled his eyes, his lips compressing as he turned back to Steve with a disgruntled grimace. Steve shifted closer, so that their sides were pressed together.

"Shouldn't we be putting a halt to this?" Steve asked in a low voice, pitching it so that only Tony could hear.

"Oh no," Tony smiled sharply, watching the proceedings with far too much glee for Steve's comfort. "Let them at it. Sometimes, the only way to learn is by doing and fucking it up."

"That explains so much about you," Steve snorted and then turned and leaned in, placing a soft kiss on that adorable pout because, really, who could resist.

"You love me," Tony grinned, linking their hands. "Besides, with the new configurations, they won't do much damage to anyone but themselves.

Steve gave an absentminded hum, and fell into easy conversation with Tony, discussing their plans for the following day since they were both planning to skive off the conference and visit some local winery that Tony was considering for purchase for Pepper's birthday. Or in actuality, Tony was considering it and Steve was going along to talk him out of it.

As usual. It was a thing that happened. Often.

He didn't know how much time they lost discussing the pros and cons of having a winery in their holdings when it happened.

Out of nowhere the room filled with a high pitch whine that had Steve wincing and on his feet in an instant, scanning the room for the likely culprit, his hand clutched at his side as if searching for a nonexistent shield. Spinning in a tight circle, he stared in horror when he discovered the cause - right in front of him, the device Jane and Fitz had been diligently working on, glowed an ethereal blue that reminded him of the Tesseract and pulsed wildly, the whining growing louder with each subsequent flash.

Jane and Fitz stared at it in wonder for all of thirty seconds before Jane's eyes widened and cursing under her breath, she threw herself to the ground, covering her head with her arms as she did so. Fitz and the others quickly followed behind her and Tony got out one very virulent, shit before Steve launched himself at his lover and tackled him to the ground just as a resounding blast echoed throughout the room.

Steve hissed as shards of wood peppered his skin, leaving behind little cuts as he covered Tony, using his own body as a shield to protect his more vulnerable lover. And he stayed that way for several minutes until the the echoing ceased and the room was still and silent outside the incessant ringing in his ears.

Breathing in a shuddering breath, he looked down into Tony's face, relieved to see that his lover was more annoyed than anything.

"You going to let me up there, cowboy?" Tony snarked, but there was a small smile on his face, bringing an exasperated grin to Steve's.

"Yeah, yeah," Steve huffed, gingerly getting to his hands and knees. "Keep your pants on, Stark."

"My hero," Tony said facetiously, fluttering his lashes like a mad person even as he sat up.

Steve huffed again and then rolled over, brushing off bits of wood and metal shards as he turned to see if the others were all right, and then just stared at the mess that was once their table, barely making note of a sheepish Jane poking one eye out of the nest she'd made of her dress. Shaking his head in disbelief, the sound of the blast still ringing through his ears, Steve stood utterly transfixed until a muted bellow filled the room.

"STARK!"

"Every time," Tony huffed as he got to his feet, shooting a baleful glare at a visibly embarrassed Bruce and a stunned Jane and Fitz. Steve quickly made his way to his side, steadying him with a hand on his back, thankful when Tony leaned into it instead of batting it away. "Every damned time! Why is it when something goes wrong, everyone points their fingers at me?"

"How is that even a question?" Bruce joked, but it was a weak thing at best. He quickly stood and then offered a hand up to Betty.

"Oh, no you don't," Tony said, pointing a finger at the lot of them. "You do not get to pin this one on me. I, for once, was the voice of sanity and reason. And how that is even possible, I don't know. But I was. You cannot blame this on me because I told you guys that the equation was wrong and you talked right over me without so much as a by your leave."

At this point, Fury had stalked his way over to them, and halted at Tony's side just in time to hear the end of his irate ramble. Fury paused, staring at the spectacular demise of their table with compressed lips, his dismay evident before glowering at the group of scientists that were once sitting around it. And all the while Tony continued his rant.

"You are so lucky that you were performing this thing on a small scale and not to the full force of what you were proposing, otherwise we would be missing far more than just a table."

And Steve shuddered at that thought, remembering what Tony had said about the force of the blast taking out the entire building if he hadn't talked them into some form of caution.

"So, no. Nope. Not taking the fall for this…" Tony said as he turned to a seething Nick Fury, and pointed to Jane and Fitz. "If you have issues, you take it up with those two over there."

The muscle next to Fury's good eye ticked as he stared hard at a completely unrepentant Tony; although, Steve would admit that Tony was fully justified in his reaction. This time. And since he could sense that Fury was getting ready to lay into Tony further, thinking Tony was trying to pull his usual 'Really, sir, I'm just an innocent bystander,' bullshit, Steve decided to end it now.

Before Tony really got irritated.

The last time that had happened, Tony had somehow managed to program Fury's communicator call tone to Barbie Girl, so that every time Fury attempted to call a team member, instead of sounding an alert, it trilled, "I'm a Barbie girl, in the Barbie World…" And while amusing for everyone who was not Fury, Steve hadn't heard the end of it for months after.

"It's true, sir," Steve said, leveling an exasperated glare onto the others, cementing Tony's shit-eating grin. "Tony did make several attempts at telling the others that they had the equation wrong, and they ignored him"

Fury eyeballed him, obviously not believing a word he said, but Steve just shrugged and smiled his 'I-am-Captain-America-and-I -would-never-lie' smile. To which Fury huffed and rolled his eye before rounding on a cowering Jane and Fitz. And Steve decided that now was the perfect time to slip away while Fury was busy berating the others.

He reached out and tugged Tony to his side, "Let's go."

Tony nodded and then turned to follow him as Steve began to make his way out of the wreckage, nodding to a worried looking Sue as they departed. Tony turned his head to see where Steve was looking and hummed, his brow furrowed when he spotted Reed across the room.

"Huh...I'm surprised that Reed wasn't at our table," Tony said off-handedly, shaking his head as several people from nearby tables scrambled away from them. "Usually they like to have all of us superhero-scientist types in one easily watchable place."

"There was a reason for that," Steve huffed, staring down in dismay at his ruined suit. Pepper was going to kill them both. even if it wasn't their fault this time. "God knows that had Reed been sitting with us this year, everything would have exploded that much sooner. Remind me to add FitzSimmons to the banned list next year."

"You…" Tony trailed off, gaping as he fixed Steve with an accusatory stare. "I can't believe you. Did you and Sue seriously scheme to keep me and Reed separated at the conference?"

"Need I remind you what happened with the portal incident three years ago?" Steve replied, one brow arched. "And actually, that was Pepper. She didn't want to deal with yet another public relations mess and clean up bill like the last one."

"That was so not my fault," Tony protested indignantly, brushing soot from his pants.

Steve shot him a frankly disbelieving look and kept walking, opting to remain silent. It was such a blatant lie, that he was surprised that Tony was still standing and hadn't been struck down where he stood. Besides, if he gave him enough rope, Tony would hang himself.

"Okay, so maybe it was a little bit my fault," Tony conceded, just as Steve knew he would, a petulant tilt to his lips; and God, Steve shouldn't find that so damned attractive, but he did. "But most of that was all on Reed."

"Tony," Steve sighed, barely quelling the urge to roll his eyes. "You two opened up a portal to a world where we were all zombies, werewolves and vampires. Trust me, when I say, that I never want to repeat that again. Ever."

Tony scrunched up his face unhappily, his mouth opening and closing a few times as he tried to come up with a justification for his and Reed's madness, but wilted when none came to mind.

"Okay, yeah; that was kind of creepy," Tony admitted with a grimace. But then he brightened, his lips curling into a leer as he waggled his eyebrows. "You have to admit, I made a hot vampire though; and you, an even hotter werewolf."

And then Steve did roll his eyes at that.

"I'm not even going to dignify that with a remark," he retorted, slowly maneuvering them through the still slightly hysterical crowd, all staring dumbly at the wreckage they left behind, and heading for the door before his wayward scientist could make things worse.

"Honestly, can we not get through even one of these things without nearly killing everyone in the process? Is this not possible? If it's not Doom trying to infiltrate the conference to get to Reed, then it's AIM trying to steal some mind control device that some moron came up with and bragged about to all and sundry. And if it's not that, then it's one of our own trying to prove that the multi-verse, or whatever their pet project is that year, exists. Just once, just once, I'd like to actually eat my dinner, and not watch as it disintegrates before my eyes."

"No you wouldn't," Tony smirked, resting his hand on Steve's lower back as they broke through the crowd. "Trust me on that, Cap. There is a reason I go through the drive thru before one of these things. Because honestly, I'm not sure what they're serving exactly, but it isn't anything even remotely identifiable as edible food. You should be thankful that you are spared that horror."

Tony paused and tilted his head to the side thoughtfully.

"Actually, that makes a lot of sense," he continued, mostly to himself.

"What does?" Steve asked at the non sequitur.

"Why these little incidents always happen before dinner," Tony smirked, chuckling as they made their way to the car, which had pulled up just as he and Tony walked out the front doors.

It always amazed him that Happy seemed to know just when to pick them up even though Tony hadn't called or messaged him. Then again, that had been a rather loud explosion, and Happy likely added things up in a logical and linear method and figured out that Tony might be needing a quick escape route, and made sure to ready it.

Steve waved at Happy, nonverbally telling him to stay put as he opened and held the door for Tony himself, and then slid in behind him. "So why do we go to these things again?"

"SCIENCE!" Tony said, and Steve could practically hear the all caps in the word.

"Right," Steve replied dryly, shutting the door with a firm click and then waving again to let Happy know that they were ready to go whenever he was. "Maybe next time, I'll just stay at home and wait for Red Skull, the Masters of the Universe, AIM and the Mandarin to show up. It'd be safer."

"Please, you'd be bored without me," Tony snorted and then nodded to Happy, some secret communication passing between as he pulled away, leaving behind a seething Fury, who had just stalked out of the venue's doors with Maria in tow.

Steve sighed as he watched them out of the rear window and knew that he was going to hear about this next week despite Tony's lack of involvement. But for now...

"You owe me dinner," was all that he said, leaning back into the seat next to Tony.

"Not a problem, Soldier Boy," Tony smirked, his eyes taking on a wicked glint that told Steve that dinner was likely not in the cards just yet. "Pretty sure I can think of something to fill you up. After all, I think I behaved myself pretty well tonight and I was promised a reward. I think I deserve it for dealing with that madness. Happy, close the privacy window and take the long way around."

Steve wasn't so certain about that; because he was fully aware that if he hadn't extracted an agreement out of Tony earlier, he would have likely been right there with the others, egging them on. If for no other reason than to annoy Fury.

But faced with a mind-numbingly hot, pliant Tony straddling his hips just as the window closed between them and Happy, he couldn't muster up a reason to care.

"Well then, Stark; I guess I should see to that then."