September 2012

Of course Tony heard the one time in New Mexico story, from first hand even – it's a S.H.I.E.L.D. legend – but apparently it didn't exhaust the possibilities of donuts saving someone's life. It's pretty fun afterwards, agreed, but it doesn't seem nice or interesting at all when you're driving a car across a mostly empty road, in the middle of the night, and then when you stop because you're human and have physiological needs, a car appears behind yours and over a dozen heavily armed man surround you.

Tony lived through several kidnapping attempts, successful and failed, but one thing that's sure about this time: the men dressed in black are prepared to take down Iron Man. What they don't know, of course, that the other person in the car isn't just a harmless civilian but Phil Coulson himself.

Only that the odds are pretty bad: there seems so be at least five armed goons per person and Tony can't quite imagine himself knocking them out like that – machine guns, all right? – so he nicely puts up his hands as soon as he's zipped his fly. There's maybe a five seconds delay before Phil walks out of the car and obediently puts his hands on the car.

Then they're both cuffed, get their mouths taped and then land in the back of a big black car. Someone gets into their SUV – Tony can tell that from the sound of the engine – and they drive for almost half an hour.

'Come out. Move,' someone shout and Tony and Phil are pushed out of the back of the van and led into an abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere. How… cliché. And convenient.

In the sickly light of glow-tubes Tony can finally see their captors, all dressed in black, including face masks. There is eighteen of them. Which makes the odds even less favorable. Ugh.

Phil catches Tony's eye and gives him the tiniest nod and Tony almost smiles under the tape: he's not really scared. Not with Phil. Even if it might be a long time before someone notices the tracker in their car shows an unusual position; Tony wants to curse himself for not installing JARVIS before they left. But then it was supposed to be a trip of the two of them, not three.

The men are talking in hushes tones, one of them takes photos of Tony and Phil as they sit in the chairs they've been chained to now and then disappears somewhere.

Phil gives Tony yet another nod a few minutes later, right before the biggest of the men comes up to them and pulls the tape off Tony's face quickly, leaving the skin underneath tender.

'You want money? 'Cause you know, I have money and you can get what you want,' Tony says quickly before anyone else can speak up, gaining a firm glare from the man.

'Money would be nice,' the man says with a thick French accent. 'Right after you give us answers to some pretty pressing questions.'

'Well, in that case I hope I have the answers –'

'Shut up,' the man barks out and Tony obeys. If he was alone, he's be more mouthy, but he knows Phil will kill him if he gets into more trouble than necessary. 'I have planned this for months and now I will make sure you give me my answers, you capitalistic scum –'

'Boss, phone call for you,' someone calls across the room in a fearful voice – Tony sympathizes – and the boss grunts, turns around and marches through the hangar, his heavy steps echoing.

'Look, I found something in their car,' someone else says and Tony's heart stops for a fraction of second before he remembers there was absolutely nothing in the car that could give him and Phil away as agents on a super-secret mission. Just a bag with two changes of clothes and some food.

Ah. Food.

'Look, there was this huge box of fucking donuts, I bet they got them from some auntie on a family party –'

'Or they were taking them for someone, those fags,' another voice supplies and Tony almost snickers, but manages to stop himself.

There are twenty donuts and it's a perfectly reasonable amount to last him ad Phil about 48 hours. Not like they wouldn't burn twice that many calories during their usual daily workout within a few days. Well. Without this interruption.

Tony can feel Phil's burning gaze at the back of his head so he turns around and raises an eyebrow. Phil looks at him for a second too long – and then at the donut box. And back at Tony. There's an intensity to his glare that only Phil could ever muster.

'Go on, help yourselves,' he says, observing Phil's reaction – it's an almost smile behind the tape that still covers Phil's mouth. 'We were actually hoping to get them to our team, they're special, you know, because I made them and I can assure you there will never be a chance to try my lovely confections again –' Tony keeps ranting, seeing approval in Phil's body language.

It seems that the donuts are some kind of a secret rescue thing and Tony loves the idea.

The goons start to look at the donuts with more interest. Good.

'Yeah, I'm sure you won't be making any of those soon,' another man laughs and the others join in, but they do seem eager to see what the fuss is about and a moment later one of them takes a bite, almost getting the chocolate glaze on the mask that's still on his face.

'C'mon, they're good. I don't give a fuck who made them, but we're gonna eat them to the last crumb. Scum.'

Tony nods stiffly, trying not to look too smug. There must be some sweet solidarity among the man because everyone takes one donut each and they leave the additional ones – maybe for the boss – and then it's pretty quiet for a few moments as everyone is chewing and swallowing.

'No so bad, me, huh?' Tony asks and someone growls at him again, the low noise sounding almost like thunder, and he's pretty sure he'd get a slap across his face if the men were standing closer.

The boss comes in a moment later, scowling, and before a minute passes he's eaten two donuts and shouted at about a dozen people, making them scatter, most of them leaving for the outside.

Then all of them are unconscious in two minutes. Tony guesses he and Phil are lucky that no one opened fire at them but the kidnappers must have been told to keep them alive.

'I knew no one could resist your cakes,' Phil says as soon as the last man has dropped to the floor. Tony never noticed when Phil got his hands and his mouth freed in no time. He returns Phil smile and just as Phil is three steps away from his chair, Tony presents his free hands, too. Phil raises an eyebrow.

'I learned from the best – what did you do?'

'Had five seconds. Enough for my super-spy sense to kick in and sprinkle some special S.H.I.E.L.D.-made medicament on the donuts. They'll be out for at least two hours. Depending on the mass,' he adds, eying one of the tallest man, now almost at their feet.

Tony can't stop himself anymore so he bursts out laughing, a bit hysterically but he's just been at a gunpoint a moment ago and while he never doubted Phil had a plan, it's a relief to be done with the mess. And so quickly.

'Well, I guess I'm glad you had faith in my baking abilities,' he says, taking a step closer to Phil and giving him a quick kiss. 'Now – what do we do now?'

'I call for a S.H.I.E.L.D. team, they surely can be here before these men wake up. So we go out, take one of their cars –'

'You'd confiscate it anyway, so that's fine,' Tony adds and Phil nods in agreement.

'– and we drive on like we were supposed to.'

Tony nods, wondering if saying that he doesn't feel like continuing this little road trip right now would be fine; he really wanted this time away from everyone and everything but under the circumstances the plan doesn't seem that pleasant anymore.

'That is, unless you fancy a ride in a mysterious black helicopter to the nearest SI plant we could steal a jet from and go back home,' Phil adds innocently and Tony keeps straight face, too. He's been getting better at the game.

'I've got to admit I started missing JARVIS a bit since I last heard from him twenty seven hours ago,' he replies smoothly and the corner of Phil's lips twitches just a little.

'I bet you did. So, we will talk about this… incident with our agents but I want you to know one thing right now?'

Tony makes a go on gesture and returns to massaging his sore wrists. Phil smirks.

'You're making me those donuts when we come home. I'll make sure of that.'

Tony does make the donuts as soon as they're back in New York, in fact, he makes a few dozen to be sure there will be enough left for him and Phil after Cap and Thor and the others steal their share. Phil helps; Tony prepares and kneads the dough, they share a few glasses of wine while the dough is proofing – and then he lets Phil cut out the donuts when the it's rolled and ready, hovering over his lover's shoulder and refusing to say something actually helpful.

'So now…'

'We let them raise for half an hour to let them be as soft as it gets and then we pop them into the oven and let JARVIS tell us when they reach the perfect state.'

'Isn't that a bit like cheating?' Phil asks, furrowing his brow, and Tony pretends to feel offended.

'Since it's someone I trained to do this for me, no, it's not, we did like a few dozen tries before JARVIS knew what he had to look out for, it was a genuine scientific research, I tell you, I've even got pie charts and the cooking time noted down to nanoseconds –'

'Just shut up now, mister scientist,' Phil orders him and takes off the very manly black apron he's been wearing in one smooth move. 'Do you realize this is how we got together?'

'This?'

'Donuts,' Phil adds, making Tony snort.

'That time after I am Iron Man speech?'

Phil nods.

'You never told me that,' Tony stares accusingly, staring at Phil. 'Why haven't you told me that before? I actually thought there was nothing to talk about before I was dying –'

'I figured you were supposed to be a genius and know those things,' Phil cuts in, with a tiny bit of fondness in his flat voice. 'Besides, JARVIS knew.'

'What!?' Tony bursts out, taking a step back and then giving the ceiling his most scandalized stare. 'I'm sorry?'

'Agent Coulson's vital signs indicated –'

'Thank you, JARVIS,' Phil cuts in, fixes his eyes on Tony and sighs. 'Well, you were different that I expected, first time we really met. When you let me know your two big secrets.'

There is a moment of silence before Tony speaks up.

'Caramel and strawberry, huh?'

'You remember?'

'Let's hope chocolate and vanilla will do it for you, too.'

'I'd never think otherwise,' Phil assures him just as the oven pings, signaling that the donuts inside are ready to be taken out and put onto a cooling rack, awaiting finishing touches.

'I hope you'll keep liking my pastries for the foreseeable future since they're half the reason you're sticking with me,' Tony teases, placing another baking tray filled with the ring-shaped dough inside the oven.

None of them has any doubts.

A/N: I know it's been a very long wait so thank you for your patience! I hope you enjoyed this last chapter. Thank you for reading and let me know what you think :)

As always, if you're interested in the chocolate baked donuts recipe, you can find it on my tumblr (the link is in my profle).