This is the fluffiest thing I've ever written. Oh god.

Disclaimer: As much as I'd wish I did, I don't own Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, or The Avengers. Sigh.

In Which Humanity Disappoints Steve Rogers (Again)

10:11AM, and Tony Stark walked into the café with swagger in his step to belie the guilt that threatened to choke him. (Guilt? What guilt? Tony has never felt guilty in his life.) He should've set his clock two hours ahead, damnit, he was always late to everything, Pepper always said so and he never listened to her, and this was only what he deserved, because now he was eleven minutes late for his— (Nope, nope, stop there, Stark, stop there.)

Now he was eleven minutes late.

Chocolate brown eyes (oh shut up with the clichés; your eyes are mud brown at best) scanned the Starbucks patrons for a familiar sight, and he let out a surprising breath when he finally found a beacon of blond in a sea of black and brown and grey and boring. Steve was sitting unobtrusively in a corner booth, trademark brown leather jacket over some abominable shirt that was definitely plaid of some kind, and he seemed to be poking (again) at his outdated razor of a cell phone. Tony swaggered over to the booth (swagger, swag, he had it all) and slid into the seat across from him.

"Sorry," he said quickly as a greeting, "I had a thing." Add a vague hand wave, and Steve would never know that 'thing' was code for 'Jarvis didn't wake me up, the fucker, I'm really fucking sorry, I tend to oversleep when I sleep because I never sleep.' But when Steve just looked up from his phone with that damn smile and that damn lack of judgment and just said, "Okay.", Tony felt like exploding from the guilt instead of sagging underneath it (which he did instead.)

And then, without another word, Tony reached over and took ahold of Steve's unattended mug of coffee—"What is this, Cap? Are you letting this get cold? Seriously? This is the best over-priced narcotic in America, what're you thinking letting this go cold"—and took a generous sip.

All he got for his trouble was a bemused and exasperated, "I wasn't letting it go cold, Tony—"

"—oh? Oh no? Then what do you call this?" Vague wave of the hand holding the mug, never mind the bit of coffee that splashes out, over the side.

"…Cooling down…?"

Snort. "Cap, this cup of coffee is at Perfect Coffee Temperature—an appropriately capitalized and patented temperature known only to Starbucks employees." A calculated raise of the eyebrows. "Honestly, I think some people would kill for the exact degree count on this cup of coffee, and here you want it to cool down." Another snort. "And come on, just think how many oppressed, third-world child laborers it took to even make this crap of a coffee ground—"

"What?"

Oh. That got his attention. (Finally.)

"I said, just think how many oppressed, third-world child—"

"—No, I heard what you said, I meant—"

"—laborers it took to even make this—"

"—Tony, I heard what you said." Oh fuck, Steve looked really sad. He looked downright appalled and glum and depressed and… guilty. (Guilty? You sure, Stark? …Yeah, that's guilt.)

"Hey, man, c'mon, cheer up, I didn't—"

Steve ignored him and pulled the mug from Tony's hand. "Is it really?" he asked sadly, peering into the brown liquid. "I'd hoped—" He sighed, placing the mug back on the table, out of Tony's reach. "Never mind. It was… never mind."

Tony frowned. "It was what, Cap?" He tried to subtly take the mug back, but Steve shot him a weak glare and only moved the cup farther away.

"I, um. I guess I'd assumed that with all these innovations, we might've. You know. We might've stopped using other human beings for our own pleasure?"

Tony felt his lips quirk. "Jeez, Cap, you make it sound so dirty."

Steve didn't rise to the bait. "It is dirty, Tony. It's disgusting, actually. And no—" He pushed at Tony's hand, which was feebly trying to steal the mug of coffee back. "—you're not drinking any more of this." He stood, and Tony glanced up, catching sight of a Very Disappointed Steve Rogers Face. Damn. "I think it's time to go."

Tony deflated. Right, well, yeah, of course. Of course, yeah, no, sure, totally, time for Steve to go, that wasn't completely disheartening or anything. He waved his hand vaguely. "Yeah, sure, okay," he said, looking anywhere but at Steve or at the coffee cup that had ruined their—whatever.

"…are you not coming?" Steve looked so adorably confused that Tony immediately berated himself for his idiocy.

"Yeah, oh, 'course I am, Cap. Can't have America's Greatest Hero wandering the streets of New York without his trusty bodyguard and all that, right?"

Steve grinned. "Whatever you say, Tony."

And they left Starbucks like that, walking too close, Tony's hand on the small of Steve's back, with Tony secretly terrified that he'd already ruined it, and Steve thinking that their first date was already off to a fantastic start.

four weeks later

"What do you think of this one, Tony?"

Steve held up a sign emblazoned with 'Free the children! Boycott Starbucks!'

Tony sighed. "It's great, Steve. It's perfect."

Steve grinned. "Good, because it's yours."

Tony's expression didn't even change (he was proud of that, actually). "Fine."

And it was.