When You Put a Billionaire, a Super-Soldier and a Scientist Together…

Disclaimer:

The Avengers belong to Marvel. This was inspired by a tumblr post and written for the Avengers Kissing Meme on LJ, for reasons I don't even know. This story contains slash/BL of the threesome variety; feel free to hit the back button if it's not to your tastes. There are also spoilers. I only own this idea. Thank you.

Full Summary:

[One Shot – Spoilers for 'The Avengers'] When he first awoke, the future was a combination of familiar but mostly strange to him. Things got less strange after fighting off an alien invasion with a team he barely knew but eventually worked well with. Regardless, Steve still doesn't get how this happened to him. He doubts he ever will.

Steve doesn't quite know how it happened. He doubts that the other two parties involve understand either.

Well, okay. Maybe he understands how Tony and Bruce would click together as well as they do. It's just like the first time Bruce and Tony met on the Helicarrier, and the only person who fully understood all the technological and scientific jargon that was coming out of Tony's mouth was Bruce. It isn't too far of a stretch that, after all that had happened (saving the world from aliens and Loki, Tony sending himself and a nuke into outer space and the Hulk saving Tony when they all feared the worst), the Avengers' two resident scientists would become closer friends… and then even closer than that.

What Steve does not understand, and he thinks that maybe he'd sooner understand gamma radiation and arc reactor technology than his current situation, is how he ended up in the middle of Bruce and Tony's… relationship.

And it actually doesn't feel wrong or awkward or just plain weird.

Then again, after waking up seventy years into the future only to be shortly launched into a world of Norse Gods (well, Loki's not actually an Asgardian, according to S.H.I.E.L.D's files and Thor's explanation in the aftermath) with major issues and then having to save said world from alien invasions… Steve thinks he probably has seen enough of weird to be desensitized to it. Forever.

Maybe it's because after they'd parted ways, Steve eventually found himself coming back to visit Stark Tower, now renamed Avengers Tower even if Tony stubbornly refused to tell him what that single remaining "A" stood for or why Tony never bothered to repair that sign, to apologize to Tony. Because even though by the end of the crisis and shawarma, they'd more or less resolved their issues via fighting alongside each other (and surprise, surprise, they actually worked very well together in a combat situation), Steve still felt that a proper apology was needed.

Somehow, that conversation had ended up with him moving into the Tower, joining Bruce as Tony's other flatmate (well, tower-mate maybe). Steve hadn't been surprised to see Bruce there, still remembering how Tony had offered to give the other man a place in Tony's building to live and work (A home, Steve had thought then, and still believed it to be true). Thinking back on it, Steve realized that Tony had been gathering strays into his Tower (everyone had a floor, not a room, because this was Tony Stark, to themselves, even if Thor was still in Asgard and Clint and Natasha were more often than not away on S.H.I.E.L.D business), though he's never sure if Tony knew what he was doing consciously. And even if he did, Tony would deny it even under severe torture, because Tony Stark was, and still is, unused to admitting to being compassionate and it was just one of those things that had taken Steve a good long while to see.

Iron Man may be the physical armor, but Tony's been wearing layers of protective armor long before the first Iron Man suit came into existence.

But even after the apology and moving in and spending lots of time in Tony's state-of-the-art gym (built specially for Steve, Bruce had told him secretly one day, though it's not like Steve didn't figure it out because other than Thor, who probably doesn't need to work out because he's a Norse God, the Hulk, who really doesn't need to work out and if Hulk did, well, and Tony in armor, no one else would've been able to hit triply reinforced punching bags without breaking their limbs - and Tony in the gym working out is something Steve has yet to see and doesn't think it will ever be a common occurrence), things hadn't been smooth-sailing immediately.

Tony still got on his nerves sometimes, and when Steve found it in him to argue right back, things got rather explosive. Thankfully, not literally, and not like that time on the Helicarrier when they'd all been influenced by Loki's chaos spear. Still, it was pretty bad and on occasion, Bruce had to play mediator. How Bruce did not Hulk out during those times would always remain a mystery to Steve.

It was during one of those heated arguments when it happened. Steve can't really remember what he and Tony were shouting about now, though maybe that's because his memory of that argument is now mostly replaced by what happened in the middle of it and not what started it. They'd been talking loudly, voices escalating to near shouting levels but not quite there yet, and it seemed as their voices got louder, the distance between him and Tony got shorter until they were practically in each other's face. Vaguely, he registered Bruce entering Tony's workshop, probably alerted to what was going on by the ever vigilant JARVIS, but beyond that his entire focus was Tony.

Then between one highly-tension-charged word and the next (and when he reflected on it, it had felt like a different sort of tension compared to their earlier arguments), Steve had grabbed Tony by his hip and pulled him forwards to close the minute space between them… and then they were kissing. Hard and hot, a bit on the rough side and fuelled entirely by the adrenaline running high in both of them. Then, almost as if they were on the battlefield (and maybe this was another sort of battle altogether, and he'd clicked with Tony so easily in combat), their aggression towards each other gentled simultaneously and while it was no less heated, the kiss turned more passionate than angry.

"Finally."

And it had been Bruce's wryly amused voice that snapped them both out of it so fast, they probably had mental whiplash.

Steve had blushed and was trying to find a way to explain his actions, but then Tony had recovered and had a wide smirk on his face. Then Tony was dragging him over to Bruce by a hand on Steve's own.

"Awww don't be jealous, Bruce. You know I love you too," Tony said, and then slung his other arm around Bruce's waist and then planted a kiss on Bruce's lips.

For his part, Bruce only looked more amused, shaking his head at Tony in fond exasperation. "I'm not jealous, Tony. But the UST in the air between the two of you for the past week was almost enough for the Other Guy to make an appearance. I'm glad it's actually now resolved."

"Uh…" Steve managed.

"Don't worry, Steve," Tony said, turning back to him. "All's good. Well. All will be good as soon as Bruce plants one on you as well. Then everything will be official!"

"Official?" Steve echoed.

"Official," Tony affirmed without hesitation. "Go on, Bruce. You know you want to."

Bruce chuckled, let go of Tony, stepped towards Steve and while usually Steve had much better reaction time than this, Bruce took hold of Steve's right hand with his left and kissed the back of it before Steve could pull away.

Tony pouted. "You know that wasn't what I meant, Banner."

"You didn't specify anything else, Stark."

"Um…"

"True. I guess I should've given more details, like really, really down-to-the-last-letter details. BUT. Details, you know how I like to have leeway and all that space for improvisation. So, even though I didn't get what I wanted – and really, Bruce, honey, you should know how I tick by now – I'll be christening our floors the Stark Spangled Banner!"

"The what?" Steve couldn't decide whether to be scandalized or not because he actually got that pun, but either way, he was blushing even more.

Bruce's reaction was a lot more… Zen. But it was Bruce, and if he had dealt with all the tension between Tony and Steve for the past week in a perfectly calm manner, then this was practically nothing.

"Not that I approve, but it's better than some of the other puns you've used," Bruce said. "Now that this is done, I'd been about to come to tell the both of you that dinner was ready when JARVIS alerted me to your… argument. It's curry tonight."

Everyone knew that Bruce made awesome curry, and then Steve found himself being led towards the elevator with Tony on one side and Bruce on the other.

And the rest was, as they say, history.

So Steve might not get how everything came to be, but it probably wasn't all that important anyway. Even when he found out about another of Tony's bad puns.

So the full title was too long to be put in the field for creating new stories. Ah well. -.- Also, I hold no rights to coining the term/OT3 name of "Stark Spangled Banner". All credit for that goes to ironfrost on tumblr. I'm a diehard Steve/Tony fan, but this just begged to be written. That said, IDEK.

Hope you enjoyed it!

carzla