It began on a Friday night.

The Avengers Team and a few of their friends were having a dinner party to celebrate some program that Tony and Bruce had been working on for schools that had been a major success in encouraging students in STEM subjects. Pepper and Tony had both insisted on everyone coming together to celebrate, with the exception of Thor and Loki, who were both off-world, Coulson, who was doing something sneaky for Fury that couldn't wait, Erik, who was on a date, and Helen, who was attending her aunt's second wedding in Hawaii. So it was that Tony, Bruce, Pepper, Happy, Rhodey, Natasha, Clint, Steve, Sam, Jane and Darcy ate a delicious pasta cooked by the surprisingly skilful Tony, while listening to the conversation that had turned into each of them telling various stories about the things they had to put up with from being the others' friends.

"-So Bucky finally asked Alice out but she turned him down-" Steve was interrupted in his retelling of his best friend from Brooklyn in the 40s by the sounds of everyone's exclamations and, grinning he raised his finger, "Ah ah, wait, let me finish. So he asked her out and she turned him down because it turns out that all his attempts at courtship - all those flowers and the attempt at singing? Well, he'd been flirting with her twin sister by accident!" Everyone burst into laughter before Natasha began speaking.

"July, 2005. We'd just finished up a mission in Hamburg." Clint groaned, but then started grinning while Natasha continued, undeterred, "I'd got hit in the shoulder and was stuck in medical - Coulson has always been a stickler for proper medical protocol. There was one of the old doctors, Dr Kaile, who had something of a grudge against Clint. Clint says he's innocent, but I think it's because he knows that Clint is actually a walking disaster in medical - even when he's just visiting - so he was banned from seeing me after. I'm not going to lie, I was getting really bored, since I wasn't allowed to do anything, but I'd just resigned myself to spending two nights in there when I hear this tapping from the vent above me."

Everyone nodded, well used to the archer's odd but endearing habit of travelling around in the vents and already guessing where the story was heading. Natasha continued. "It was obvious who it was, and I just thought that Clint was going to stay up there and talk to me, but then I heard him move the cover off the top. He used his bow to lower a basket down to me, manoeuvred it so it spilled something onto my lap and then he lifted all his stuff up and just left." Here Natasha paused for a moment to add dramatic tension - no matter how much she denied being above that kind of thing - before huffing in amusement. "So I looked down, and there was a scruffy-looking kitten on my sheets," here there were more than a few laughs and amused glances at Clint, "and it had a ribbon tied around its neck, with a note that said 'Hi, my name is Doughy. I'm in training to be SHIELD's first spy-cat.'" Everyone was sniggering now, and Clint looked unrepentant. "It was an especially interesting few days. Especially since it turned out that Kaile had a cat allergy but he couldn't figure out why he was continually sneezing." And everyone burst into laughter once more.

"Hey Jane, remember that girl from college who you thought had stolen your favourite spoon, so you made me make a distraction so you could steal all her sugar and then you ended up running out of her dorm with all her coffee and tea bags!" Darcy threw in with a laugh.

"Hey Darcy, remember how for the distraction you decided to set off an actual firework in the common room and attack everyone with a super soaker when the fire alarm went off?" Jane retorted.

Darcy laughed and smiled, "Yeah, good times."

"What about you, Bruce?" Pepper smiled at Bruce who had opened up a lot during his stay at the Tower, but who often seemed to hide in the background.

He gave a small smile, "Not really, most of my funny stories have come straight from working with Tony. And I think JARVIS tells them better anyway."

"Thank you, Dr Banner. I do believe that Miss Potts has some interesting stories to tell, though?" The British tones of JARVIS supplied innocently from nowhere.

"Traitor!" Tony hissed at a camera, making the others laugh.

Pepper smiled mischievously before she began telling the story of how Tony had angered a very important politician and when Pepper and sent him off to make it up to him, she didn't hear anything for two days until she got a call from the zoo. No one actually knows what exactly happened, Tony and the politician being too drunk to remember anything, but the zookeepers were saying that the two of them somehow managed to stop an elephant from being assassinated. When word got out, public approval for both SI and the politician had a major boost for a few months. The politician apparently still sent Christmas cards.

Bruce shook his head, "You know, I actually fully believe that since it's you, Tony."

"Hey! Don't get the wrong idea here," Tony implored everyone. "You're all just as crazy as me, you're just better than hiding it."

Rhodey huffed, "I don't know about that, Tony-"

"Remember how we met, Platypus. Remember it all."

Rhodey stilled and, to the astonishment of all, conceded, "OK, you may have a point there."

"And you, Miss Potts, remember how you earned the name 'Pepper'." Pepper hummed in affirmative before Tony looked at Darcy and Jane, "We met under pretty normal circumstances - well, as normal as possible considering - but our first conversation? Decidedly not normal. And you can't pin that one on me," Jane and Darcy glanced at each other before simultaneously looking back at him with a raised eyebrow, causing him to correct his statement to, "OK, mostly," to which they nodded in agreement.

Tony just looked at the Avengers, "'Nuff said." They couldn't really argue that.

Then he turned to Happy, "Hap, you know exactly what I'm talking about." The man in question grimaced.

"Fair call, Boss."

Tony smirked then and raised his hands in a 'what can I say?' gesture, "Told ya. Y'all just as crazy as me. Speaking of crazy," Tony apparently decided to change the subject, "we should totally do this again."

Clint snorted, "What, dinner? Or the whole hanging-out-for-a-good-reason-instead-of-world-ending-disasters-and-alien-invasions thing?"

"Either? Both?" There were various noises of assent from around the table.

"That sounds nice actually," Steve said with a sweet smile. "Who knows, maybe well find out that other people know how to cook."

Rhodey snorted, "Maybe, but you can count me and Pepper out. I kind of have a few policies when it comes to food," he added after a few curious looks. "One is that I like being able to taste the food I eat when I'm not on an op, and no offence Pepper, but your cooking is terrible." Everyone looked to Pepper to see how she'd react.

She just shrugged, "None taken, I know what areas I'm skilled in, but cooking is not one of them."

"What're your other policies?" Natasha asked Rhodey after a few moments.

"My other main policy is that I don't cook for Tony. Ever."

"Why's that?" Jane asked, curious.

"Because in all the years we went to MIT together, this little shit," Rhodey jerked a thumb at his friend who sighed as though he was being put upon, "didn't tell me he knew how to cook! I fed us for years and had to remind him to eat, and always made sure that there was food in the fridge, because he sure as hell wouldn't keep it stocked himself, and I thought that he was going to starve and that he either didn't know how to cook or was just so terrible that the food was inedible! Then, just a few weeks before he graduated, I walk in on him making restaurant-quality carbonara and I discover he can cook better than I can! And he was only making it so he could impress some girl who was really into Italian cuisine! I'd been going out of my way for bloody years to make sure that he had access to food, and the whole time he knew how to cook like- like-" Rhodey floundering in his impassioned speech just gestured to everyone's now empty plates while the others watched with amused sympathy, "this! So now, I don't ever cook for Tony."

Sam nodded when Rhodey finished, "Perfectly understandable reaction, man."

"More like overreaction," Tony put in, just to wind his best friend up.

"No, Boss, it really isn't," Happy said.

"Well, at least Rhodey's policies will allow for us to eat Tony's food more often," Pepper put in with a teasing smile at her boyfriend, whose token protest wasn't able to hide his answering grin.

"Speaking of," Darcy quickly got everyone's attention, "Tony, how come your cooking is so good? Scratch that, how do you even know how to make something that isn't coffee or comes out of a can? Seriously, Jane actually cannot. I feel your pain, Rhodey."

Everyone glanced at Tony then, curious about the answer. Tony paused for a moment before answering in a fond, but slightly sad voice, "My mother was Italian. Before she married Howard, she was Maria Carbonell. She loved her culture, and was proud to be both an American and an Italian, so she took great pleasure in demonstrating her knowledge of both in all areas that she could, whether through language, fashion, attitude, music or cooking." Everyone watched as Tony looked at another time, lost for a moment in his memories, before his smile grew more playful and he snorted in amusement, "She couldn't cook for shit, though. She tried, and she had fun while doing it, but she was a much better musician than she was a cook. Our butler's wife, Ana, knew how to cook, though. She was Hungarian but she knew a lot of Italian dishes too. As a kid I used to help her make food for Mom, just- to remind her of home, I guess. I seemed to have had a knack for it, since the skill's always stayed with me. I only ever really make it when I have time or I have guests. It's mostly just muscle memory at this point, so it's easy to make. Plus, Italian food tastes really good."

No one had really been expecting Tony to share something so personal, especially not about his mother, but they were all comfortable enough with each other to not be shocked by the show of trust from the usually guarded man.

"So why don't you have a butler yourself if you can never be bothered to cook?" Clint asked in the sudden lull.

"Well, I do have enough money to hire an army of private chefs if I wanted to, Bird-brain," Tony reminded him, "but unless the butler is Alfred Pennyworth, I'm not hiring. And even then, why would I need Alfred when I have JARVIS?"

"Why thank you, Sir. It's always nice to be valued above such an esteemed fictional character," JARVIS snarked.

"All that sass, J. I don't know where you get it, but I'm so proud," Tony suddenly perked up, "Hey, did I ever tell you guys about the time JARVIS hacked into Hammer Industries HQ and trapped Justin Hammer in his own elevator? No? Well it started when..."

The Tower's occupants spent the rest of the night regaling each other with stories, and thus is became the first of many Friday nights wherein they would all meet, have dinner and just hang out without a world-ending crisis.