A/N: It's finished! Over and done with for real, this time (except for the side-story from Steve's point of view that's coming up). Thanks for support to those of you who supported this story. Reviews always appreciated.
Brynn
x
Part Three: That Lookx
Dinner is a lot louder than usual, thanks to Thor.
Tony's first to go down to the dining room, not because he wants to, but because Steve tricks him into it. The Cap's still laughing, sprawled comfortably in his chair (which Tony counts as his victory – it's not as easy as it sounds to make Steve cease maintaining his rigid composure), when the door opens.
Thor thunders in. He pulls a chair from the table, its legs scraping loudly against the floor, and plops himself down opposite the mightily amused Captain.
"You're a cruel host, my friend, for tempting me with such a divine smell and yet having me wait for the food."
Tony smirks. He doesn't want caterers in for these dinners, so he consents to doing some of the serving himself. "How about I'll open a bottle? Because Romanov will be impossible to shut up if we start without her." It's happened before. It's been enough of a bother that Tony's resolved to never let it happen again.
Thor laughs, throwing his head back. "That I can abide!"
Tony puts the bottle of mead (not his usual fare, but something of a compromise) in front of Steve, and hands him the glasses. Steve automatically stars pouring.
Thor seems to freeze for a moment and then he laughs again, boomingly, until his eyes well, and he wipes his cheeks with the back of his hand. Tony and Steve are staring at him, both quite confused as to what is so funny.
"That… oh, how amusing!" the so-called god exclaims. "I see you have finally overcome the haze of animosity between you and chosen to follow the path of fate together!"
Tony gapes a little. Okay, he's definitely not that obvious. So what if that Cap and he can sometimes semi-communicate without verbalizing? All of the team does that. It's the result of working together. A lot. In life-threatening situations.
What the Hell did this guy actually see?
Steve shakes his head, wordlessly pushes one of the glasses across the table and hands another to Tony.
Thor lifts his above his head and proclaims: "To you, my friends!"
Steve and Tony drink, and Tony thinks about how glad he is that this has happened without a crowd of witnesses. It's not like they're hiding – they haven't tried to hide since the beginning – but that scene has had a lot of embarrassment potential. He doesn't need that.
True to their superheroic stereotype, Barton and Romanov appear just as Steve finishes filling the glasses and Tony hands him another open bottle.
"Ah, golly," Bruce grumbles, entering on the heels of the Bond duo. "Is the world ending for real? I could have sworn Steve's an abstinent."
"Stark!" Romanov exclaims. "That's proof conclusive! You can drive even a saint to drinking!"
"I'm not a saint!" Steve objects, with quite a lovely flush on his cheeks.
"He's not a saint," Tony repeats in his patented flat tone. "I would cast him out of my house if he was. I am morally opposed to sainthood."
Clue in the predictable response to his announcement – groans, snorts and mutters ("Ain't that the truth."). They really are a regular menagerie today.
The Zoo-escapees settle down, leaving Tony a place in between Bruce and Thor, which is good and bad because he's a safe distance away from Steve. Also, he's not within reach of Romanov. Also, he's next to Thor.
For those and many other reasons, Tony brings three more bottles with him, grimly aware that this isn't going to be nearly enough. Thor could probably drain a barrel by himself, and Tony would need a good half to get moderately buzzed. Damn Cap's got him wrapped around his sanctimonious little finger. No hard alcohol? Really? Never ever again. He doesn't know what he was thinking – well, yes, he does, and damn Steve for being so fucking underhanded when it suits him. Honestly. Tony might be a genius, but even he can't think that well when there's no blood in his brain.
There's small talk.
There's steak and potatoes and piles of vegetable. Tony prefers junk-food, but he doesn't want to ever again be subjected to anyone's rant about proteins and nutritional value. He regrets the absence of wine.
Inevitably, Romanov says something that raises his heckles (too damn similar, the two of them). "It's Fury's job to handle the mess that is us – the Avengers – on one side, and the… people who think they control everything on the other."
"Between us and the Council? Can you say high stress job?" Bruce quips, drawing some snickers.
"No wonder he's got such a friendly disposition," Tony deadpans. "My issue with him is that I don't trust him. With several good reasons."
Romanov throws her head back (her hair still doesn't change position, glued together with industrial-strength product). "Fury's not that hard to get. He just does his job to the best of his abilities, and his best is pretty impressive."
"He lied to us," Tony points out.
They all know this. It's the reason why Fury doesn't know half as much as he'd like to about their fortnightly get-togethers.
"Because the lies were what we needed to hear to get the mission accomplished as effectively as possible."
Romanov's just doing her job and playing the devil's advocate, but Tony's too competitive to let her lecture-interrogate him, so he gathers some support from the peanut gallery: "Spangles, you can't agree with this?"
The Cap has obviously expected this argument, because he has his mighty proclamation ready: "I understand the necessity of giving soldiers limited information based on the need to know." He pauses, and then adds: "However, this situation is much different and… I do believe Agent Fury has overstepped his boundaries in this instance."
"Thank you!" Tony exclaims, clapping once in a parody of exultation.
"You're seriously taking Stark's side?" Romanov demands, half-incredulous, half-accusing.
Steve shakes his head. "I am not taking anyone's side. I was asked for my opinion and have given it, such as it is."
Sexy! Tony mentally exclaims, muting his grin down to a superior smirk, in case Romanov or Bruce look at him.
"As a leader must," Thor throws in.
"I didn't expect that," Romanov says to the Cap, with an undercurrent of reproach, as if he was betraying her by disagreeing with her. "You of all people should know how recon and reaction works."
Steve, cornered, shrugs and sets his elbows onto the table, finally forgoing the prim-and-proper dining etiquette. "I do," he admits. "I wouldn't want to go back to that. I am a part of this team now, focused on homeland intervention, enforcement and logistics, and I don't want it sinking to the usual practices. I like to think that we are better than that."
Romanov scoffs; Barton raises his eyebrows in mocking disbelief.
Steve briefly covers his face with his hands and sighs.
"Idealist," Tony mutters. He doesn't show off his fondness for the guy, and thus – once again – becomes the target of exasperated and mildly offended looks.
It's kind of worth it when Steve lowers his hand from his eyes to his mouth, glancing at Tony and hiding his smile at the same time.
"Better than a cynical money-grabbing man-whore," Romanov retorts.
Tony might have been insulted, if a very similar label couldn't be applied to her, too. Since it can, he merely smirks.
"Hey!"
"Come on, Natasha!"
"That was uncalled for," Bruce informs the woman, misleadingly placid.
"I like to think I'm making the world better by improving myself," Tony tells her.
Romanov quirks her lips. "Not becoming a better man?"
"He prides himself on how bad he is," Barton observes.
Just like that, the mood around the table is light again. They all have superb reaction times, and a certain measure of impulsivity and short tempers go hand in hand with that. Quick to anger, quick to laughter, the whole lot of them. Sure, with Bruce there's the perpetual-rage thing, and Steve's just too damn timid sometimes, but in general they're a bunch of cholerics.
"Speaking of Stark," Romanov pauses and fishes in her pocket, before slapping the cockroachcom onto the table in between the plates, "has he shown you this thing yet?"
"No, he hasn't," Thor replies, leaning over to get a closer look.
"Is that a… bug?" Steve asks, amused and disgusted at the same time. Tony can't wait to see his face when he finally meets the Ant Man.
"Is that a QAM transceiver with limited support A.I.?" Bruce paraphrases, wide-eyed. His hands twitch in the direction of Mark C.
"Aw," Tony teases, "you spoilt it for the other kids." Nevertheless, he clicks his fingers and watches as another Mark C lifts itself from the shelf and flies into his hand. Neat. He hands it over to Bruce for fear that the guy would either green-out or piss himself with eagerness.
Tony is so proud of himself. If that thing works as it should – and he's pretty sure it does, since he is its creator – it will enable long-distance communication with the Hulk, too. Hence the support A.I.
"Aren't you full of surprises?" Romanov mutters, trying hard to not show how impressed she is. "Thermonuclear astrophysics, telecommunication… what next? Hydrometeorology?"
There are laughs all around the table, and Thor uses that pause in conversation to propose another toast.
Idiots, all of them, Tony muses, raising his glass and taking a swig. Do they think he can do shit like creating his suit or keeping the market cornered without being an expert in pretty much every branch of physics, plus engineering and programming? Okay, he's not so hot when it comes to astrophysics, for pretty much the same reason why Sherlock Holmes doesn't know jack squat about astronomy. (And he blames the Holmes simile on Pepper.) Although, lately he's been brushing up on that, whenever he finds some free time that isn't better spent drinking or seducing Steve – because the whole Nine Realms thing just doesn't sit right with him.
Thor's not a big help since he doesn't know squat about the technical side of things, and the project that's shaping up out of this will take more than his lifetime, so Tony wonders how to beget a kid without the actual begetting process.
He'll need a successor. Maybe he should adopt? There must be some certified genii orphans, right?
But, life-partner first, successor second. He's not managed to shackle the Cap to himself thoroughly just yet, so he'll have to work on that some more before he can start looking into progeny – if he wants a kid to end up any better off than himself, he's going to need Steve's future parental influences.
Oh fuck, he's screwed, isn't he? He's just thought of Steve and kids in the same context. Shit, shit, shit. This is bad. It's worse than bad. It's-
Completely involuntarily, his eyes meet Steve's over the dinner table. Tony experiences a moment of utter hysteria; he can't breathe, can't move, can't think. It feels like he's dying. A lot like that time when Obadiah paralyzed him and pulled out his arc reactor.
'Tony?' Steve mouths quizzically.
Tony shakes his head and looks down at his plate. He can't really taste the steak, but at least the food is something he can hide behind. It seems to him as if everything was happening behind a glass wall, as if he was just observing the conversations going on around him in slow motion – Bruce expounding on some anecdote, gesticulating more than he normally would for fear of going green; Romanov laughing at what he's saying and unconsciously putting her hand on Barton's forearm; Barton glancing down, startled, and then looking back up to continue listening to whatever Thor's telling him, even though his expression is completely different; the corners of Thor's eyes crinkling in amusement at the knowledge and him reaching for a bottle to refill their glasses.
Tony can't hear them. His ears are ringing.
He grabs a bottle, fills his glass and, almost as if in response to yet another of Thor's toasts, downs it in three gulps. Not enough alcohol content, but better than sobriety.
"Tony?" Steve asks, this time aloud.
"My mind is a dark place," Tony replies with not nearly as much sarcasm as he would have liked. "Getting lost in there can be frightening."
"I bet," Romanov snarks.
"If you say so," Steve humors him. Damn, the man knows exactly when to push and when to back off.
Bruce blinks, thrown by the sudden interruption of his soliloquy, and searches the table for the cause. Romanov quips something that spurs him on, and he turns back to her, drawing Barton's attention as well. Tony catches the words 'lost the second banana, too' and decides he doesn't want to know.
Thor looks from Tony to Steve and back and laughs yet again, in an entirely too good mood tonight. Maybe he's gotten laid and that's why he's so high, and also why he's – noticed. The mead's certainly compounding the mirth. He's sitting there playing with his… hammer, and looking like a brutish, oblivious Viking. It's easy sometimes to fall for the illusion and dismiss him as the brute-force part of the team. He doesn't know anything about science because they've got magic instead in Asgard-land, but he's smart enough to fit into this group (he is an MD, according to Fury's files). It's just less obvious because unless he gets in a groove he doesn't talk so much and sticks his tacit, solemn warrior impression – which in turn gives him a lot of time to listen and watch. That's probably why he'd got the thing between Tony and Steve pegged in, like, three seconds.
Tony doesn't think they're being that obvious about it (case in point, the rest of the present supposedly intelligent people has yet to cotton on) so he placates himself with the reminder that – god.
"Are you lost in the dark again?" Steve inquires, smiling over the rim of his glass, finally relaxed enough to drink something mildly toxic of his own volition, even though it doesn't have any effect on him.
Tony shakes his head. "Just a little too much joy to stomach," he says, pointedly looking at Thor, who's now intermittently guffawing and hiccupping.
"It does require a little accustoming to," Steve allows. "In a few weeks seeing you look happy will stop being so novel. I think."
It takes Tony a few seconds to find words. "Seeing me what?" he hisses, putting his utensils down and reaching for a napkin, although that utterly fails to cover just how discomfited he is.
The Cap shakes his head. Tony sighs and appropriates a bottle. He's still too fucking sober for this.
x
It's been eight days, six hours and some spare change since Tony's implied his invitation for his whatever-he-is to live with him. It sounds so domestic when put like that, but so far the reality of their cohabitation is that Tony and Steve kind of migrate in between the penthouse and the guest apartment.
It's largely undefined, and Tony flees away from it into the geek world of gizmos, doohickeys and thingamajigs – to use technical terms.
He only comes out when he has to.
There's been a press conference yesterday. A couple of the so-called reporters put a new meaning to the words 'skimpy outfit.' Tony swears they are trying to entice him, entrap him, and use him as a scandal-fodder. Brilliant strategy: Pulitzer through higher heels and lower neckline. Classy.
His brand new worldview disables him from seeing them as walking offers of free sex and puts them firmly into a category of 'annoying but essentially harmless lowlife.' Fuck, Tony is just so not himself these days. (Might explain why he feels so good.)
Seeing as his life is completely upside-down, he's got the same company in bed for more than a week running, he doesn't even consider fucking floozies that offer themselves, doesn't drink half as much as he'd like and spends his days holed up in a lab, it's little surprise that he finds out about Pepper's return from Europe from JARVIS.
"Sir," the A.I. speaks just as Tony's gearing up to put together the final product of his struggle against aromatic polyamides.
"What?" Tony barks and glares at nothing in particular.
"I was instructed by Miss Potts to not alert you to her impending presence within the Tower."
"Fuck," Tony sums it up succinctly. He misses Pepper – he's missed her yesterday especially, since her shield-like presence reliably derails the majority of the Paris-Hilton-wannabes. Still, her ordering JARVIS to keep her arrival a surprise (Tony likes letting her think that she could manipulate his A.I. against him, but Tony is also fairly certain that he is smarter than to let that happen in actuality) signifies that she is pissed.
Whatever about, he has no idea. He's been unreasonably well-behaved, lately. Unfortunately.
"And when is she going to descend upon me?" he asks dully, setting down his remote and glumly glaring at the vat of sulfuric acid.
"Taking into account the current traffic, Miss Potts should arrive within fifty minutes," JARVIS replies.
No fiber-spinning today, Tony admits to himself, and wishes he had figured out the formula yesterday, so he could have his nice new armor fabric ready by tonight. Never mind, though, it will be ready by the next dinner. And maybe he won't even show it off until the next crisis – he likes to wow like any narcissistic perfectionist megalomaniac does, but pulling a solution out of his ass in the midst of crisis is ever so much more satisfying. He loves that feeling.
"Dog done it," he growls, pulls off his gloves and throws them on the countertop. He leans back against the nearest vertical surface – the HVAC unit – and throws his head back, slamming it into the casing.
He shouldn't feel like he's been caught with his hand in a cookie jar. He's not doing anything wrong. And, fuck it, if he was, it would be none of Pepper's business.
He needs to pull himself together, and to do it without the help of mind-altering substances, so it's either jumping out of the window and hoping that Suit Mark 7 can catch up with him and keep him from planting his face into the asphalt (it did once before, but that's hardly a conclusive proof) or finding Steve. It's ridiculous how much the Cap's mere presence helps him centre himself.
It takes Tony three quarters of an hour to shower, dress and get his ass down to the gym where, according to JARVIS, Steve's destroying some punching bags. About one of those three quarters is spent downloading, watching and re-watching Steve's tumbling routine. Fuck, with dexterity like that, their sex life is going to be… interesting. Needless to say, (after pulling one off) Tony's a little less jittery about his confrontation with Pepper.
The gym is situated below the lab but above the pool, as per Tony's alterations to the blueprints after Loki's spur-of-the-moment renovation effort. Tony takes the elevator.
As soon as he steps foot out, the door slides shut and the cabin sinks toward ground level – to pick up his PA.
It's too late to go and bother Steve for a little tête-à-tête (not necessarily an explicit one; even their verbal interaction can be frightfully satisfying, and Tony wants to die after he realizes what he's just thought, but then again, maybe not). Tony approaches a vending machine – also not his idea, but apparently it's the ideal solution for providing a wide range of drinks to those very few people who actually use that gym – and pushes the buttons which, according to the printed instruction, should make the machine make him a coffee.
The machine spits out a plastic cup, whirs, gurgles and pisses out a dubious brownish liquid.
Tony takes the cup with no faith at all. He moves to the bench in the locker room, where he sits and waits for Pepper to hunt him down. A single half-sip of the suspicious substance in his plastic cup reassures him that he's been right, and it's definitely not fit for human consumption. It even smells off. It's all the plastic inside it – high-density polyethylene, he'd just bet.
There are muted thuds coming from the next room. The sound is low and repetitive. Apparently, Steve's not destroying the latest punching bag so easily. Thumbs up for a Stark Industries product once again.
The elevator door chimes. Apparently, Pepper's asked JARVIS for Tony's location, as he expected she would. The clicking of her heels doesn't keep rhythm at all with the thumping of the Cap's fists.
"Oh, good!" Pepper exclaims, standing in front of the row of lockers in a black power-suit and a metallic blue shirt beneath it, which offsets her coloring in a quite flattering manner. The pearls are a plus.
There's a brief pause in between the thuds, and Tony knows that Steve knows about Pepper's presence and, by induction, also about Tony's.
"You're that happy to see me?" Tony shakes his head in faux-disbelief. "I must be doing something right."
Pepper smothers her amusement in a very professional way. This is why Tony's hired her and kept her and may never let her go. She's the best. "Don't think you get out of anything that easily, Mr Stark. I talked to Nat on the phone – by the way, guess to whom I haven't talked on the phone?"
Oh, so that's why she'd pissed. Tony's not as dull as to repeat his – 'Phil? I thought your first name was Agent…' – joke. Not so much because it's part of a somewhat fond memory of a deceased colleague; more because he's imaginative enough not to need to repeat himself.
"Are you deserting me and engaging in a lesbian affair?" Tony asks loudly, feigning outrage. "I know I wasn't the one who turned you off men!"
Pepper takes a deep breath and lets it out. "I think the problem at hand is quite the other way around," she suggests, hitting bulls-eye.
Fortunately, Tony does have the poker face that lets him not deny or confirm anything (which is as good as a confirmation to anyone who knows him, but also much better than humiliating himself by floundering for words). Since he's feeling a little disarmed, he hands Pepper the cup of the awful, despicable, machine-produced coffee. It's his preemptive revenge.
Pepper looks at him with a mixture of hopeful appreciation and deep suspicion. She takes a sip. And grimaces.
Tony pretends he has no idea what's going on. Pepper, of course, can tell it's bull. Still, she has no defence against his helpful and caring act. (It's not all act. Tony feels as much affection for Pepper as she does for him. It's not exactly negligible.)
"I knew better than to believe the rumors of your changes," she concludes dryly.
"All rumors of my change of heart have been greatly exaggerated," he paraphrases G.B. Shaw.
Pepper is one of the very few people around him who'd recognize the reference. The Cap, Tony would bet, is another. Art's his thing, even though he rarely admits it out loud. It's like a secret pleasure. Tony's endured the Museum of Modern Arts for him, so there must be adoration happening there… somewhere.
Pepper chuckles. She sets the cup down onto an empty stretch of the bench and narrows her eyes. "I can't believe it! You've got the sweetest man on Earth pining away for you, and you don't even notice! And don't tell me that him being a man is a pro-"
"I don't do sweet, Pepper." Tony continues because it's another one of those opportunities he can't let pass and because, yes, he's unfortunately aware of who is the 'sweetest' man on Earth. "Besides, Steve's not pining." He raises his voice and loudly asks: "Cap, are you pining?"
Pepper blanches. It's funny. Apparently, Romanov hasn't told her half as much as she could have. Well, all the more convenient piss-taking opportunities for Tony.
Steve stops punching the bag. He appears in the archway, sinfully sweaty and disheveled, and with a delightfully clueless expression. "No…? I'm not." Hesitant, he takes in Pepper's expression and then Tony's. "Should I be?"
See? Delightfully clueless.
"I don't think so," Tony assures him, "but Pepper here was worried about you."
"I am very well, Miss Potts. There's no need for concern," he assures her, with the expression of the perpetual, quintessential Boy Scout.
"If you're sure," Pepper allows, giving Steve the consummate smile, but Tony (and Steve, too) can tell it's fake.
"Thank you," Steve tells her politely. "If you don't need me…" He gestures behind himself, presumably toward the abandoned punching bag. "Excuse me."
"See you later, Mr Rogers!" Pepper calls after him, because she's professional like that, and for as long as Steve calls her 'Miss Potts' she'll go on calling him 'Mr Rogers.' But she's working on him already, Tony knows that. And Steve will cave, sooner or later.
He's a dear.
Pepper, on the other hand, is a dragon that's just been poked awake by a sharp stick in the soft tissue (and who doesn't have a clue that the princess has been since saved and thoroughly ravished).
"You knew!" she accuses Tony in a whisper-shout, and woefully ineffectually tries to shove him.
"Of course I did," Tony replies. It's not like he and Steve have been trying to hide anything from one another – only from the prying busybodies that seem to swarm around them.
"And you just ignore him?" Pepper demands indignantly.
Tony scowls. "Of course I don't." She's just seen them talking to one another. And it's not a secret they spend a lot of time together (alright, it is a bit of a privileged information just how much time they spend together).
"Stark!"
Pepper really is hot when she's pissed, Tony muses. All flushed cheeks and trembling limbs. Fuck.
Steve reemerges, hyper-alert and trying to gauge the situation like the battle-hardened leader of soldiers that he is. Pepper's too intent on cursing Tony's lack of empathy to notice him just yet.
"How can you treat him like this?" she hisses, blushing and shaking her fists.
"Like what?" Tony counters.
"Tony, he's…" Pepper pauses. Luckily, she realizes that she's about to cross the line, and doesn't say the four words that are really none of her business. "He deserves better," she concludes instead.
"Is this any of your business, Potts?" Tony inquires. "Do you really think the big A can't take care of himself?"
"I know how you can be," Pepper argues. "I suppose it's better if you pretend you don't see anything than if you took advantage of it."
Damn, Tony muses. They really do all think that Steve's hopelessly naïve and too stupid to tie his own shoelaces. Fuck, like the guy would let himself be taken advantage of? He's perfectly able to rearrange not only people's faces, but their limbs, too, and often enough the only reason why he refrains is that he's just too damn nice.
"Can't you grow a pair for once and let him down easy?" Pepper finally formulates a reasonable (to her, that is) request.
Steve catches onto Tony's game then and, obviously, doesn't like it. Tony figures it should be the guy's call, anyway, what they tell and don't tell Pepper. Pepper's not a threat, and sometimes Tony wonders if Steve is physically capable of being territorial over anything but his country and his race's right to the planet they're occupying, but he has to admit that so far he hasn't given Steve any serious cause for concern.
Huh. Apparently, Captain America can make even a faithful, committed relationship not only a palatable, but an attractive prospect. Who would have thought?
"In this instance, your concern is misplaced, Miss Potts," Steve speaks up, looking at Tony for a few seconds and accepting the implied permission to disclose whatever he wishes (they do work together very well), before he returns his attention to Pepper.
Pepper has, by this time, finally caught up. "You're… Damn it, Stark! Can't you keep it in your pants for five minutes?"
"If I must," Tony concedes. "Not really applicable in this situation."
Steve's growing rapidly more and more uncomfortable with the topic of the discussion. He needs his privacy – another novel concept that Tony's had to get used to but, boy, has it been worth it! Now it even annoys him that Pepper has the gall to come and interrogate them and think that she's entitled to the intimate details of their… relationship.
About time Tony's learnt to apply the term, if only in his thoughts.
"I…" Pepper turns from Tony to Steve, probably about to start cajoling, but Steve shows her a shade of his battle face and Pepper backs down with a single word: "…apologise."
Steve nods. "I am thankful for your concern, but I ask you to not question either myself or Tony further."
She nods again. "I will see you later. Tony, there'll be a dossier on your table. In the lab, because I know you won't go into the office-office until next month. Read it. I'll know if you won't, and JARVIS likes me."
That sounds suspiciously like a threat, but Tony lets it go. As Pepper disappears round a corner, he yells: "Yes, butt out!" and tries to ignore Steve's disapproving frown.
This is who he is – a rude, obnoxious asshole who needs to have the last word.
x
Tony's failed to account for how it would feel the next time they're sitting around the oval table and pretending to agree on a strategy for their next battle.
He's as familiar with their enemy as creative hacking allows, and Steve getting into his spanglex should be hot, and not make him think about mortality and related issues.
Has he lost his mind? Can he see or is he blind? Tony muses, smoothing down today's t-shirt. It's an AC/DC day – as it always is when he's requested to save the world. He's T.N.T. He really is. He wins the fight.
"Isn't that correct, Stark?" Fury asks in a tone that expresses his awareness that Tony hasn't been listening to him at all. He's trying to make it look like Tony's a fucking snot-nosed midget schoolboy ignoring his teacher's (boring) lecture in favor of his gameboy.
"You can kiss my wealthy, privileged, anarchist ass," Tony mutters, not taking his eyes off of Steve's spanglexed upper arm. Delicious.
"God bless America," Bruce mutters under his breath.
Steve tries to meld with the uncomfortable chair, and Tony grins when Thor bursts out into loud, rich laughter.
Barton pretends to re-read the particulars of their mission, whereas Romanov rolls her eyes skyward and asks: "Must you broadcast the details of your sex-life, Stark?"
Tony would say something biting in response, except that Steve's turning a lovely pink color, and he's really too distracted to formulate any psyche-shattering wisecracks.
"You can call me 'God' if you like," Tony says instead, and does have the presence of mind not to vocalize the: 'and I'll bless America anytime he'll consent.'
Groans sound all around.
It's the Cap who's helplessly grinning (having filled in the unspoken line), hiding behind the S.H.I.E.L.D.-provided tablet, and Thor, who's still in the throes of his laughing fit, that disrupt Fury's attempt to lead a serious conversation here.
Really. It's another ordinary day at the office.
Tony hasn't given any such permission, but his mouth is stretching sideways and upwards anyway.