Tony flicked through a few pages on his tablet. "Hey, you realize the chitauri thing was a year ago?"

"Yeah, one year exactly as of last week." Steve set aside the newspaper and got up from the couch. "Which means we've been dating for nine months."

"Oh, no, don't you do what Pep did and start nagging me about how we could have a baby by now."

"Tony, we're both men."

"I know, I know, but I'm not sure I trust what all got done to you in the '40s." Tony winked.

"That's not funny."

"I think it is."

Steve shook his head and took a couple steps toward Tony. "Anyway, no, but there is something I want to talk to you about, in private."

"We're the only ones in the tower. What is it?"

"Are you sure?"

"Steve, it's midnight on a Sunday and the wonder twins are in, I think, Morocco, we're the only ones around." Tony sat on the edge of the bar. "What is it?"

"Well..." Steve rested is hands on Tony's knees. "What would you think about getting married?"

Tony blinked at the soldier then laughed. "Very cute, Steve."

"I'm not joking, Tony,"

Tony fell silent, for once at a loss for a comeback. He reached blindly for a bottle down the counter. "In case you haven't realized, marriage isn't exactly my type of thing."

"In case you've forgotten, you didn't think I was your type of thing."

"That's different." Tony took a swig from the bottle and stood up. "Steve you can't be serious."

"I'm very serious." Steve crossed his arms. "Feel free to tell me I'm rushing things, but don't shut me down here. What we have going here is the most stability I've ever had in my life and the most I've ever had for a relationship, and, you know what? I like the set up. I'd like to keep it going. And I love you, Tony. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most people get married when they love someone and want to stay with them?"

Tony ran a hand through is hair, took another drink, set down the bottle, and paced a few steps away. "You're actually serious. You are actually serious. I don't know, Steve."

"Well, think about it." Steve pat Tony's shoulder, and kissed him. "I'm going to bed. In my quarters. See you tomorrow." He left the room, digging his nails into his wrist, wishing it actually hurt. When he got to his rooms, he sat on the edge of his twin bed and scrubbed his hands over his face. "Goddamnit, Tony..."

A rapping on her office door made Pepper look up. "Oh, hey, Natasha. Come in, I'm just reviewing some budgeting proposals, nothing urgent. Haven't seen you since you got back from Africa, how was it?"

"Not allowed to talk about it." Natasha took a seat across Pepper's desk.

"Of course you aren't." Pepper rolled her eyes. "You got a tan though."

"Bit of one, yeah. Learned how to belly dance, too. I probably shouldn't tell you that but I'm not terribly concerned about you as a security threat. There is something concerning me though."

"Random guess: Tony is more distracted than usual, Steve keeps staring out the window with a sketchbook he's not drawing in—as well as sleeping in his own bed—and they're avoiding each other."

"Glad I'm not the only one who's noticed. Do you know what's going on?"

Pepper shrugged. "They probably had a fight about something."

One of Natasha's eyebrows arched. "They normally get to the make up sex stage of things PDQ. This has been going on for days and neither of them are displaying aggressive behavior."

"Yeah, I have no idea."

"Well then." Natasha stood and made for the door.

"Hang on, where are you going?"

Natasha leaned against the doorframe. "To corner Steve."

"Why not Tony?"

"Tony's better at dodging questions. Steve's a goody two shoes with a freaking complex about respecting women. Also, no matter how many times he says he's been gay since gay meant happy I swear he's eighty/twenty with a thing for ladies who can kick his ass." She trounced out of the office, leaving Pepper trying vainly to stifle her laughter in paperwork.

Steve was laying on the floor of his quarters, reading a book, when Natasha quietly let herself in. He didn't bother to look up. She sat on the arm of his lazyboy. "Hey."

"Mm." He turned a page.

She eyed the cover. "Crystal Cave, huh? How's ancient England?"

"Ancient and English."

She rolled her eyes. "What's going on with you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"For one thing, you're in your damn apartment. Also, you're clearly upset but you aren't in the gym destroying punching bags like you normally do to let off steam. And you and Tony are avoiding each other. What's up?"

He set his book aside and sat up slowly. "It doesn't matter."

"Did you two fight?"

"No." He glanced away, picking at the carpet. "I asked him to marry me."

Natasha carefully moved from the chair to the floor, concerned. "Did he say no?"

"He said he doesn't know—after he realized I wasn't joking."

She took a breath. "Ouch."

"I mean, I know he doesn't see himself as the type to settle down, but—" he flopped back flat on the floor and ran a hand over his face "—I can see that he could. And I don't think that's wishful thinking on my part."

"He's probably thinking of how his parents' marriage turned out."

"I know!" Steve got to his feet and started pacing. "But Howard really wasn't the type to settle. Tony isn't like his father though, not like that. He thinks he is, obviously, but—"

"But you know better?"

"Exactly!" He leaned against the counter of his kitchenette and sighed. "I want to be with him, and stay with him, why can't he he understand that?"

"I doubt it's that he doesn't understand."

"Then what? Why the hell can't he—?"

"Has it occurred to you that he might be scared?"

Tony fell face down on his bed and groaned. "Jarvis, music, loud."

An ACDC song came on. Tony heard it without listening. A minute passed. Tony rolled over. "Kill the tunes." The music stopped and Tony ran a hand through his hair then got up to pace. "What the hell am I doing? Why am I even acting like this is a big deal?"

"Normally a marriage proposal is accompanied by some pomp and circumstance, sir."

"Well, yeah, but why does it have to be a big deal?"

"You are the only one making a big deal of it, sir."

"No, Steve is too."

"Sir, I think Captain Rogers is mostly upset that you took his proposal as a joke and have since been avoiding him."

"It's only been a week!" Tony made an unintelligible sound of frustration. "Why does he even want to get married? What's wrong with what we've got now? Now is great. We live together! What would change if we got married? Actually, no, everything changes when people get married. People change when people get married. They turn horrible and things fall apart when people get married. Why the hell does he want to get married?!"

"I think he may have a differing opinion on the matter, sir."

"Yeah, because he's from nineteen thirty-whatever when everyone was christian and everything sucked but everyone was so used to everything sucking that no one cared!"

"Allow me to change tack: can you imagine Captain Rogers changing?"

"No, he's Steve but it's marriage. Something would go horribly wrong."

"What's the worst that could happen?"

"Our relationship could go to hell in a fast car."

"What's the worst that could happen then? Would he neglect you in battle and allow you to die?"

"Jarvis, we're talking about Steve, he'd never just let someone die no matter how pissed he is." Tony collapsed onto his bed again. "Worst that could happen I guess would be divorce. If that's even something he does. Was divorce even a thing back then?"

"Yes, sir, I assure you it was."

Steve took a deep breath and opened the door to the workshop, where he found Tony sitting on a stool, staring at his suits, cup of coffee in hand, with Butterfingers hovering cautiously around him.

"Hey," Steve started cautiously, causing Tony to look around and nearly drop his coffee. "Can we talk?"

"Uh, yeah." Tony stood and set down his mug. "I was actually about to go find you. I need to talk to you, too. Uh, yeah."

Steve paused. "You first."

"Right..." Tony took a breath. "I'll do it."

"Do what?"

Tony spluttered. "I'll, uh, commit the thing."

Steve crossed his arms. "Jarvis has explained that phrase to me, and we have been doing that for nine months, dear."

"No, no, I mean the other thing, the thing that you wanted, thing."

"You realize that made no sense, right?"

"You know, the thing with the rings. That. I will do that."

Steve arched an eyebrow.

"It's the, you know, the thing, with the rings, and cohabitation initiated by ceremony, which we're sort of already doing, but, oh hell, you're actually going to make me say it."

"Yup."

Tony picked up his mug, downed the rest of his coffee, stared at the bottom of the mug for a second then looked up. "I will marry you."

Steve grinned broadly.

"C'mon you two, you've set a date but you have next to nothing else figured out and it's been since May." Pepper herded the men back to the kitchen island.

"Pepper, you know I can't plan things," Tony whined uselessly.

"You have me, a CEO, and Steve, the Strarspangled Man With a Plan. You'll live."

"Please never say that again." Steve cringed at the epithet then perched himself on a stool at the island. "I guess step one is pick a church?"

"We are not getting married in a church," Tony snapped.

Steve blinked at him. "You don't strike me as the 'drag a couple people down to the courthouse' type."

"No, I'm all for a big wedding—all for any kind of big anything, partyboy that I am—just not in a church."

Pepper started making coffee and crossed her arms patiently, ready to play peacekeeper.

"I'd rather not have that big of a wedding, we don't actually know that many people, but other than a church or a courthouse where would you have a wedding? The beach?"

"Tell me you're joking."

"Weren't you baptized Catholic, Tony?" Pepper asked as though it had nothing to do with anything. "There are some really gorgeous Catholic churches in just about every city in most countries."

"Yes, I was baptized Catholic—as a baby by my Catholic, Italian-American father, but I'm about as Catholic as Steve is Jewish. No church."

"We actually did celebrate Hanukkah a few time when I was little."

"Oh my Flying Spaghetti Monster." Tony put a hand over his face.

"And we are getting off topic." Pepper shot a pleading glance at the coffee maker. "If not a church, courthouse, or beach, then where? Tony, you're the one vetoing so you should come up with a suggestion."

"Why not here? I own a goddamn skyscraper."

Steve shrugged. "That'd be fine by me."

Two pots of coffee and many conflicts later, Tony lay his head down on the cool stone of the counter top. "How can getting married possibly be a good idea? We are doing nothing but disagreeing."

Pepper set another full mug in front of him. "You are disagreeing but you are managing to find middle ground without killing each other which more or less proves it is a good idea"

"By that logic, you and me getting married still counts as a good idea."

"Oh, no. If you were marrying me, and it had been me, not Steve, making the very reasonable request to have a nondenominational minister read the vows, and you had shot it down like you did—I'd have thrown you out the window. On that note, I highly suggest you give in on the 'not seeing each other before the ceremony' front."

"That is such a ridiculous superstition!"

"Tony," Steve said without looking up from the men's jewelry catalogue he was flipping through, "just let me have this one."

"Fine..."

As Natasha crossed through the main living area she did a quick headcount mostly out of habit: thirteen so far. Still missing a few guests then. She saw Fury and Coulson looking exactly like they did every day, Maria in a very nice skirt suit, Rhodey in his dress uniform, and Bruce tugging anxiously at his tie. Grinning to herself, she slipped down the hall and into Steve's side of the conference room they'd divided in two for the grooms to dress in. Inside, Steve was buttoning his shirt with careful deliberateness. She stepped forward and took over the buttoning from him. "You look like fresh meat putting on a jump harness for the first time. It's just a shirt, you put one on every day."

"Yeah, well, today's not every day, now is it?"

On the other side of the divider, Tony nodded at the sound of his husband-to-be's voice while changing watches for the third time. "See, Pep, it's not just me."

Natasha raised her voice so she could be heard clearly on both sides of the room. "Everyone is nervous before their wedding."

Steve took the uniform jacket she was holding out to him. "How many weddings have you been in, Nat?"

"This makes number twenty-nine, number seven that I wasn't there to kill someone at."

Pepper straightened Tony's bowtie. "Hear that, Natasha doesn't plan on killing anyone, everything is going to be fine."

"Honestly, the Russian spy-assasin is the least of my worries right now." Tony changed watches again and looked in the mirror. "Holy fuck, I look like my father."

Steve paused in fussing with his medals. "Yeah, you do."

"No, you don't understand. I've got my hair slicked back, I look like my father."

Natasha and Steve shared a look; Steve tried semi-successfully to stifle a laugh. Pepper pulled Tony away from the mirror and picked a bit of lint off the collar of his black buttondown. "You look fine, better than fine, you look great. And it's just about time so I'm dragging you out of here."

Steve heard some wordless protesting from Tony, then the door open and close, followed by silence. Steve sighed. Natasha tugged his jacket lapels straight. "This was your idea, you know."

"I know." He held his arm out to her. "Ready to give me away?"

She linked her elbow through his. "Still don't understand why I got the job, but yes."

"Because you and Pepper look good in matching dresses and because the only living family I have is my coworkers and, other than Tony, I like you best."

"Good enough reason."

Sitting in a quite nice folding chair out on the main balcony of the tower, Darcy twisted in her seat to look at the curtains obscuring the two doors on either end of the balcony which served as the starting points for a V of red carpet, ending in a bored looking Nick Fury leaning against the railing. Darcy leaned to talk to Jane sitting next to her. "D'you think Tony's wearing his suit?"

"I'm sure he's wearing a suit, Darcy."

"No, I mean the Iron Man suit."

"Oh, I don't know." Jane shrugged. "He might."

A few seats away, Clint was looking around him just like Darcy, but much less noticeably. Ever security minded, he was mentally surveying the other guests. There were only four people he completely didn't recognize, one of whom seemed to be there with Maria so he wasn't worried about that one. The other three looked old enough that they might have been friends of Steve's from before he went on ice. There were another five guests Clint knew he recognized but couldn't put names to their faces. Three of the five were arrayed around Coulson and were probably S.H.I.E.L.D. The other two were an old lady and what was most likely her daughter. All in all, by Clint's estimate, he was one of the four most dangerous people on the balcony and the others were his boss and coworkers. Maria leaned forward from where she was sitting behind Clint. "Barton, stop working."

"Force of habit."

"I know." She pat his shoulder.

A moment later, music started. From behind one curtain emerged Tony in a dark red tux accented in gold, Pepper in a floor-length black gown on his arm, and Steve emerged from behind the other curtain in his dress uniform, escorted by Natasha in the same black gown. As each duo made their way toward the point of the V, Steve and Tony caught each other's eye and broke into identical, beaming smiles. They reached the front, Pepper and Natasha stepped back, Tony and Steve took each other's hands, and Fury took a breath. "We are gathered here together on this lovely November day because we are the best sorry excuse for a family these two fools can scrounge up."

The guests all laughed, Thor's deep guffaws easy to pick out from the rest.

"And for some reason they thought it was a good idea for me to administer their vows." Fury shook his head and cracked open the thin black book under his arm. "Let's do this before the world tries to end again. Captain, do take this man, Anthony Stark, to be your lawful husband, from this day forward, through good and bad and alien invasions—you're marrying a billionaire so richer and poorer isn't a problem—in genetically modified sickness and in health, until something apocalyptic happens that gets one or both of you dead?"

Still grinning but also tempted to roll his eyes, Steve responded, "I do."

"And Tony, do you take this man, Steven Rogers, to be your lawful husband, from this day forward, through good and bad and alien invasions—you are a damn billionaire, why is this line even in here?—in genetically modified sickness and in health, until something apocalyptic happens that gets one or both of you dead?"

Tony squeezed Steve's hands. "I do."

Fury beckoned off to the side and Dummy, adorned with a microchip patterned bowtie, trundled up with a little satin pillow carrying a pair of rings, which the two men slipped onto one another's fingers. Fury flipped a page in his book, Steve and Tony each signed, Natasha and Pepper signed as witnesses, and Fury snapped the book shut. "In accordance with the laws of the State of New York by the powers invested in me by various governing and military bodies, I pronounce you legally and bindingly married, God help us all."

The newlyweds kissed as their assembled friends applauded. As they broke apart, they were descended upon by a mob of well-wishers. Tony shot Fury a look. "You adlibbed."

"I made things more accurate." He clapped Steve on the shoulder then made for one of the bots as it trundled around with a tray of champagne.

Things quickly shifted to the mode of a mini-reception—the "real," giant party with press and everything reception wasn't until evening. Both Steve and Tony resisted Pepper's urgings that they should dance together until Rhodey came up from behind, threw an arm around each of them and dragged them to the middle of the floor. "Just be glad you haven't got the whole bride dances with her father thing to contend with."

At the end of the first dance, a weathered but still strong hand lay itself on Steve's arm. He looked to see who it belonged to and broke into a grin for probably the hundredth time that day. "Peggy!"

She smiled and nodded at Tony. "May I?"

"Oh, of course." Tony stepped back graciously. "He owes you anyway, right?"

The two laughed and Tony slipped off to find himself a drink. He paused, champagne flute in hand a minute later, having noticed a young woman with curly blond hair watching Steve dancing with Peggy. He went over to her. "Hi, sorry, just you're at my wedding and who are you?"

She bit her lip in amusement and held out a hand to shake. "Sharon Carter."

He grasped the proffered hand. "Here with Peggy, then."

"She's my aunt."

"Hm, well, thanks for coming. The bots have booze. Help yourself."

She suppressed a giggle as he walked away. Another face in the crowd caught Tony's attention and he made his way over to the white-haired old man to whom it belonged. The man pulled Tony into an affectionate, if stiff, hug. "Your parents would be so proud."

Natasha, Bruce, and Clint, who were standing nearby all whipped around to look when the man spoke. Natasha tilted her head, causing one red curl to bounce elegantly off her shoulder. "Jarvis?"

The man chortled softly. "That is my name."

"He was the family butler when I was growing up," Tony said with a hand on the man's arm. "And I might have had him teach an A.I. prototype how to talk."

Clint shook his head, laughing. "This is going to hurt my brain."

Bruce put a hand on his shoulder. "You're not the only one."

After his dance with Peggy, Steve found himself being hugged by Maria and congratulated by another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent she'd brought with her as a date. Once they'd moved away, and elderly man came up and punched him affectionately on the bicep. "Military did good things to you, boy."

Steve blinked at the man. "Mags?"

"I'm not dead yet!" The man laughed wheezily. "And neither are you! You've done good for yourself, Steven, it's not every beau who'd bother to fly in the old queen who used to serve you cheap beer."

Steve hugged Mags gently. "I had no idea he'd invited you."

"Well, he did, and how could I not have come?" Mags pulled Steve down and kissed his forehead, just like he had so many nights in the forties. Steve would be slumped against the bar, scrawny, threadbare, more likely than not sporting bruises or cuts from picking fights he'd had no chance of winning and Mags, in a lacy dress and high heels would push a mug toward him, kiss his forehead and tell him everything would work out one of these days. Mags had been right.

"You're not here by yourself, are you?"

"Course not! Dragged my partner's sorry ass here with me all the way from California. If I'm lucky this might convince him to jump the broom before with both croak!" Mags cackled and Steve had to laugh too.

Tony clinked his champagne flute against Happy's and turned to find himself face to face with Coulson. He grinned. "Agent, do you ever wear anything other that suits?"

"From time to time." Coulson smiled. "Congratulations."

"Thank you, thank you." He slung an arm around Coulson's shoulders. "You're not going to pull some kind of crazy fanboy thing and kill me for stealing your idol or something, are you?"

"No, I'm not." Coulson chuckled and nodded toward a group of three people—a serious looking Asian woman and two excitable seeming young brunets who were chatting animatedly with Jane and Darcy. "The two of them have the crazy fan bases all covered. The begged me to bring them. Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz. They're more or less in love with you, they may die of excitement if you talk to them."

"Hm. Who's Mulan? She's got Natasha's 'I could kill you all' vibe going strong."

"She's another member of my team. She's hear to restrain Fitz and Simmons' enthusiasm."

"Awesome. Time to cause fangasms." Tony made his way through the crowd, smiling to himself as he passed his husband being hugged so hard by Thor his feet came up off the ground.

The festivities slowly moved inside and down a few floors to where the official reception was set up. There was cake, music, an open bar and lots of reporters who Tony essentially told to shut up and get drunk. Late in the night, Darcy looked around, frowned, and caught Natasha's attention. "Where are the newlyweds?"

"They left for Brazil half an hour ago."

"And no one noticed?"

"I think that's why Tony wanted a big reception." Natasha winked.