A/N: This is my first and probably last story for The Avengers. Or anyone in the Marvel universe, really. I love the fandom, but I'm not very good at writing for it. This story came about as an answer to a suggestion made by a friend. He doesn't know I've written it (although he will soon) and he'll probably be annoyed because the suggestion he made won't even appear until the next chapter.

Unless something drastic happens, this will just be a two chapter story. I hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: Don't own a thing. :-)

This was such a bad idea. If she'd known the extent of his plan when he made the suggestion three days ago, she would've tried to find a way to talk him out of it. Or at least find a reason to be out of town today. As usual, however, information she considered important was not conveyed in the original pitch. So here she was, staring into the deceptively innocent-looking grocery bag on the kitchen counter with a level of dread that was comparable to the horrible moment Obadiah had found her in Tony's office at Stark Industries.

Tony was a good cook. Pepper freely admitted that he was a better cook than she could ever hope to be. It was an activity that made him happy and helped him relax, but he rarely had the chance to do it these days. Even though Pepper had taken over a large part of running Stark Industries, Tony was still heavily involved with all the decisions. Then, of course, he had his OTHER job. When an opportunity to cook presented itself, she was more than happy to give him free reign.

The activity wasn't without a few drawbacks, though. There were certain….eccentricities that went along with his cooking. He had insisted on cooking Thanksgiving dinner by himself last year. At two am on Thanksgiving morning, she had woken up to an empty bed and found him in the kitchen talking to the still frozen bird. In French, no less. He had assured her that Julia Child would've done the same as she ushered him off to bed for more sleep.

Whenever they had a barbecue, he had a tendency to carve the outline of his Iron Man mask into the center of the hamburger buns just before he toasted them. Rather adorable when she thought about it, but their guests rarely paid attention to the inside of the buns before covering them with various condiments. This served to make Tony somewhat peevish and more snippy than usual during the rest of the day. It never stopped him from repeating his efforts the next time, though.

She loved Tony's singing voice, but was always very careful not to invite anyone over when he made any kind of Italian food. For one thing, he only knew about half of 'O Sole Mio' and that didn't stop him from simply starting right back over from the beginning when he reached the limit of his lyrical knowledge. For another, if he ever got tired of singing that song, he simply whistled the Super Mario Brothers theme song. Once again on a never ending loop, but at least he knew that whole tune. Still, it was both irritating and slightly disconcerting for Pepper.

So when he had proposed having a small get together and cooking for all the Avengers, Pepper had subtly managed to find out what was on the menu before entering into agreement. A barbecue was what Tony had proposed. Figuring that they of all people would notice the Iron Man decor, and realizing that Bruce and Clint at least would probably find it amusing, she happily approved of the idea and assured him that she would be there.

At some point the night before, Tony had apparently changed his mind about a few things. When Pepper arrived that morning with a few odds and ends for the barbecue, Jarvis informed her that Tony had gone out shopping. Now he had returned and Pepper wondered if it was too late to call the whole thing off. Perhaps there was an emergency on the news? Something to distract everyone?

"What's wrong?"

She looked over to find Tony staring at her quizzically.

"I…thought we were just having a basic barbecue. Burgers, hot dogs, chips, some kind of dessert…" she trailed off, waving her hand at the dizzying array of groceries in front of her.

"We are. But I thought it would be good to have more. We are feeding Thor, you know, and Bruce isn't exactly a lightweight when it comes to this stuff, either. Fury called last night and said he would be able to make it after all. And I thought a little more variety wouldn't be a bad idea."

Pepper bit her lip, trying not to stare directly at the object of her concern. There was no need for Tony to know about her issues regarding some of his habits in the kitchen. She had the feeling it was those exact things that helped him relax while he cooked and anything that helped him relax was okay in her book. Just not in front of other people. Pepper had no idea why this particular part of Tony's personality embarrassed her when others were around, but she hadn't found a way to get past it, yet.

Instead, she merely tried to find a way around the whole thing. Her mind raced and she mentally cheered when she hit upon a solution.

"Why don't you let me help you out, then? You won't be able to handle all this."

He smirked at her.

"You've said that before, but I'm pretty sure I proved you wrong. "

She tried to fight the blush that crept up her neck, but failed miserably. His smirk grew and she mentally cursed him as a memory of a night two months ago cropped up in her mind.

"I hate you," she retorted before steering the conversation back on track. "I really don't know how you can manage all this on your own. Especially since you'll be grilling outside."

Tony shrugged as he started to prepare the meat.

"Jarvis can keep an eye on the meat for me. He has nothing else to do."

"I am currently attempting to repair the damage you inflicted on your suit during your last outing, sir," Jarvis broke in.

"Hey, I didn't inflict it," Tony protested. Pepper sighed and leaned against the counter, waiting for the back and forth to come to an end. "Thor inflicted it."

"I warned you it was not a good idea, sir. Especially with you still in the suit."

"It's not sparring if the suit is empty. It's just Thor taking a swing at a very expensive tin can."

Jarvis said nothing and Pepper somehow knew he had taken offense at the term 'tin can'. Tony ignored the telling silence.

"You just don't want to help me cook. Well, too bad. Let me know when I need to flip the burgers. That's all I ask."

"Very well, sir," Jarvis responded with a long-suffering sigh.

Tony rolled his eyes as he pounded out hamburger patties. She watched him for a while, momentarily distracted from her goal. It was nice to watch him do things like this. It gave her a fleeting sense of being a normal couple. The two of them hanging out in the kitchen and…being domestic for lack of better phrasing. She treasured times when they could just be Tony and Pepper.

When he opened a drawer and brought out something which resembled a cookie cutter, she frowned.

"Dare I ask?" she said.

His answering grin did nothing to soothe her nerves. She watched as he pushed the metal object into one of the patties. He whistled softly, a tune she didn't recognize, while he trimmed away the meat on the outside. Carefully, he slid the meat out and gestured to the finished product. Taking a few steps closer, Pepper raised her eyebrows when she saw what he had done.

"Where did you get an Iron Man mask cookie cutter?"

"Oh, please. You can find those in any fine general retail store. I'm very popular, you know."

"So I've heard," she retorted, crossing her arms and leaning one hip on the counter.

"The cookie cutters were too small for decent hamburger patties, though. And the indentations for the eyes and mouth weren't deep enough. So I made my own. Check out the mouth on this patty," he pointed towards the indentation in question. "You can put a little pool of ketchup in there to go with the little pools of mustard in the eyes."

Pepper stared at him.

"You…made a cookie cutter? When…?"

"It's a hamburger cutter. And night before last," came the answer as he cut out another patty.

"Out of what?" she couldn't stop herself from asking.

"Titanium."

Of course. Why wouldn't it be titanium?

"You made a cookie cutter out of titanium?"

"Again…it's a hamburger cutter," Tony patiently corrected her. "Yes, I did make it out of titanium. It was all I had on hand at the time. I think I need a pizza pan shaped like this, too."

His eyes began to glaze over as he continued cutting patties and Pepper knew he was already going through the steps of making an Iron Man mask pizza pan. Even she had to admit she was slightly intrigued by the idea. When her eyes landed once again on the counter, though, she was reminded of her original mission. This was the problem with trying to do something around Tony. He was an expert at catching people off guard and sending them off in another direction.

"It would really make me feel better if you'd let me help with at least one thing," she adopted a wheedling tone, hating herself for doing so but willing to make a sacrifice if it meant escaping embarrassment later.

Tony frowned as he looked over at her. Whether he was frowning at the thought of accepting her help or frowning because she had interrupted his musings about building a pizza pan, she wasn't sure. She was willing to bet on the latter, though. Finally, he gave a quick nod and a shrug.

"Alright. If you want to help, be my guest. Thanks for the offer."

He winked at her then gave her a quick kiss before heading out of the kitchen with the plate full of hamburger patties. Pepper seized the opportunity, grabbing a large pot and filling it with water. The stove stubbornly refused to heat the water quickly and she cursed under her breath as she watched tiny bubbles slowly form on the bottom of the pot.

"Tsk, tsk. Language, Miss Potts," she jumped slightly when Tony came up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist and finding a lovely resting place for his lips in the juncture between her neck and shoulder.

Pepper closed her eyes and leaned back against him, smiling. Yes, this had definitely been a good idea. Except for the part about the other people who would be arriving in about five minutes. She sighed a little when he moved to the side but was happy to note that he kept one of his arms around her.

"Are we doing potato salad instead of chips?" he inquired. "What's with the water?"

Not trusting herself to speak for fear she would give something away, she gestured towards the box on the other counter.

"Aw, it's too soon to make that," Tony protested. "It'll be done before the burgers are even half way cooked. Then it just gets cold and all congealed. Yuck."

She raised an eyebrow in amusement.

"There is such a thing as keeping the burner down low to keep it warm. Or we could just re-heat it," she informed him.

"Pepper, it burns too easy to keep it on any kind of heat once it's done," he scrunched up his nose before reaching out and turning the burner off again. "And reheated? Also yuck. Besides, I like it done a certain way. You've even said it turns out better when I cook it."

Yes. Yes, she had. Pepper pushed past the surge of annoyance she felt with herself to make one more effort.

"Come on, Tony. It's just a box of stuff. Not hard to make."

He smirked as he started to reply and she knew before he said anything that the battle was officially lost.

"That's true. But as everyone knows, I excel at making things out of 'stuff in boxes'."

Ugh. He was never going to let that cave thing go. Before Pepper could respond, Jarvis broke in to their conversation.

"There are guests coming to the door, sir."

Perfect. Managing to hide her irritation that her plans had not worked at all, Pepper left the kitchen to welcome the first guests.

A/N: End of Chapter One. This was originally going to be a one-shot. Honestly, my usual chapters are at least twice as long as this one. But I felt it was a good place to stop in the story. Working on the second chapter already. Please review! Thanks!