A/N: I still don't think I can thank you guys enough.

Oh! Please, let me know if there are any other Avengers that you want to see more of, ideas that you might have for later scenes, quotes that you think could work in the beginning blurb below, maybe ideas for titles... [X & Y?]
Eh, shoot anything at me. :)
All the same, I really appreciate it, guys. Thank you. ...again. I mean, I mean...yeah.

Also, angst. Expect some angst later on. I need it. Especially when one of them isn't sober. And a bit of self-reflection.
As for the story's category...I still haven't fully decided whether it's supposed to be in Avengers or Iron Man. I mean, part of it's focused on Tony and Pepper, and the other part has the rest of the gang. I dunno. :/

And Fishy—shut up and take it, you fool. D:

Serious chapter here. Next one is funnier, I promise. [Hopefully uploading that soon, too?] I'm actually nervous about this one—please don't be too mad! D:
And they're out of character at the end? As for the part with Tony and the groupies and his team's reactions [maybe they're a bit off too, but it's 3 in the morning.../excuses]—perhaps it might seem a bit out of place now, but I need some sort of build-up for them to get to know the real Tony Stark and all before they can all join hands and start singing Kumbaya. Or eat bacon. Whichever comes first.

Strawberries & Shawarma
—Chapter Four:

"Is everything a joke to you?"
"Funny things are."
—Steve Rogers & Tony Stark

Doing the clean-up after a given mission was not exactly the highlight of Clint Barton's day, and he made it quite clear with the way he treated the remaining bodies of the Chitauri army he'd had a hand in decimating.

Of course, he wasn't going to be verbal about it. Instead he was just going to help Tasha strip them of their armor and weapons while Thor and the good Captain dragged their bodies off to a supposedly unimposing truck to cart them off to some S.H.I.E.L.D. laboratory where they'd be studied. Or whatever.

Except, y'know, most trucks weren't driven by guys in suits and sunglasses and talking into ear pieces.

Clint had, essentially, made it a point not to questions too many things when it came to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s operations—he got his mission, did his job, and got three hots and a cot for it—, but ever since his run-in with Mr.-I'm-A-God-So-Get-On-Your-Knees-While-I-Steal-Your-Mind-And-Make-You-Watch he'd been more than just a little on edge. So these S.H.I.E.L.D. agents watching them gave him wary looks while he worked. Whatever. He didn't need their praise or approval to get the job done right.

"Ah, hell,"

He'd just yanked off the helmet of the alien-thing laying at his feet and grimaced as its tongue popped out of its mouth, lolling between jagged teeth and just. . .sitting there. In truth, he hadn't really looked at one before, either too wound up in firing exploding arrows at them (mind the quiver strapped to his back, just as a precaution) or relieving them of their spears to take a good look at them.

Jesus, these things were ugly.

He nudged its sunken cheek with his boot while out of the corner of his eye he caught Tony shifting through rubble with their resident humanized Jolly Green Giant, his gaze suddenly flickering around to take in his surroundings as the man tried to pinpoint the exact location of each of his companions.

Stark: nine o'clock; Banner right next to him. Talking about something. Probably science-y—would the Hulk make clean-up faster? No, he'd make more of a mess. Rogers and Thor at three o'clock were loading the seventh Chitauri body onto the truck bed and scowling, which left Natasha—

"Clint,"

—grabbing his wrist and hissing his name. Not in a harsh, angry manner, but more of a quiet whisper against his ear through gritted teeth that was her own unique way of being gentle. Hawkeye blinked and fought against her grip for a moment before his gaze finally landed on her hand, letting it trail up to his own and then frowning at himself. In one of those formerly rare moments of forgetfulness that as of lately had been occurring much too frequently for his liking, he found that in his study of the Chitauri's ugly mug his hand on take it upon itself to reach up into his quiver and snag an arrow.

Said arrow was now held over the alien's eye in a death grip, much like the one Natasha had on his arm.

So it wasn't Loki. So his plan for revenge had backfired—had almost succeeded when he sent the God of Screwing With Your Head falling through the sky—when Loki caught the arrow (which had exploded, of course. See: sent god falling through sky.) and he hadn't managed the nail the unruly bastard in the eye. But you know what? This Chitauri was the next best thing and damn if he was going to let the opportunity slip by.

He didn't say anything, keeping his eyes focused on one of the glassy ones on the ground before him, and the Black Widow only tightened her grip for a half-second before she let go.

The mentally wounded man only tilted his head just so and they reached an understanding.

Natasha turned to attend to the weapons of another Chitauri warrior and Clint staked his arrow in the dead beast's eye.

Tony Stark was used to dealing with the press—hell, his entire life had had something to do with the press in one way, shape or form.

. . .Okay, so maybe that was kind of a lie. Usually Pepper or some of the people from Public Relations dealt with that, giving him a few cue cards or signals and then crossing their fingers while he approached the microphone. Of course, that plan had worked out so well following the incident with Stane and the big daddy of all arc reactors. Why follow the cards when he could just stop and declare that he was Iron Man?

However, it wasn't just Iron Man dealing with the cameras and reporters and they actually wanted to make a decent impression—he had to pretend he wasn't insulted—so Steve had been graciously offered the role of figurehead (i.e. the others had blatantly said hell no to it, just not in so many words) and was having a ball trying not to get too flustered with the flurry of questions flying at him.

Needless to say, Tony was amused.

That amusement only grew when he took note of the small crowd that had gathered off to the side, just passed the blockade of DO NOT CROSS signs and police officers with their arms stretched out to their sides like black and blue trees as they tried to contain the disaster area. Rescue workers were still searching for any trapped civilians and cleaning away rubble with the Avengers at their side, so he figured he could slip away for a few moments while Captain America did what he did best and boosted the public's morale. Very patriotically.

Oh god, now he was talking about "Our, uh, great city and, er, what it means to defend it." Well, it was something, they'd give him that.

Tony Stark was a people person, or, more aptly. . .good at talking to women, which most of the small crowd was composed of. The team was only a day old and already had fangirls. Well hot damn.

He'd said little more than "Hey there" and barely had his hand raised in greeting before they went ballistic.

"Well hey now, settle down, settle down." The narcissist waved his hands in a placating gesture, partly enjoying the way they seemed to watch the repulsors shift with the movement and flashed a cheeky grin at some of the bolder women who went so far as to ask him to marry them.

He gave a hearty chuckle and damn if they didn't just eat that up.

"Ladies, ladies," he said. "You know how it is being me."

And then came the shrieks that were apparently supposed to be laughter along with a few squeals after he winked at them.

"You can't just tie me down that easily—"

The noise from the groupies had been more than enough to garner attention from his teammates and he abruptly cut off at the variety of looks he was receiving. They ranged from confusion to disappointment and as a result something pooled in his gut—wait a minute, was that shame? Shame? Tony Stark was ashamed? Since when? How the hell did that happen?

Steve's interview had ended in order for him to get back to work on clearing away rubble and his eyes were narrowed, glaring at the other man in disgust. Tony had about to shrug it off as it were nothing—this was just Capsicle, so whatever—when he noticed the way Bruce just shook his head slowly, something darkening in his features while hints of green surfaced before he turned away, putting a bit too much focus on shoveling debris into the nearest trash bin. Natasha gave him a knowing look, and for that he almost grateful, maybe.

Thor just frowned and Clint yanked an arrow out of an alien's face, looking confused as he watched the man in the suit of armor.

Memories of last night's display and confessions suddenly hit him full force and then he understood why.

Strangely, Tony said nothing, turning back to the pile of broken asphalt he and a rescue team had been shifting through as he tried to ignore their stares before they went back to their work. Steve was the only one that said anything while clearly it almost pained him to cuss, and he sounded little more than disappointed.

"Are you always a jackass?"

Stark said nothing as his helmet reformed around his head and JARVIS scanned for any signs of life, but it was his father's voice that he heard rather than his comrade's.

But then again, how did this look when it came to him and Pepper?

They'd spent a greater portion of their day doing clean-up and getting into the public's good graces and now they were just tired and hungry.

Tony had debated trying to justify himself and his actions, but at the time the more arrogant side of him didn't feel like he had anything to justify. He was Tony Stark—genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist—and that was just what he did, take or leave it. Lord knows Pepper had, and Lord knows why she did. And so he hadn't given them any verbal reasoning behind his actions, just pressed the UP button and took the elevator back up to the top floor.

It had been an exceedingly long, exceedingly quiet elevator ride.

He just about bounded through the doors when they'd finally reached the top, wanting to be out of the situation that was more than just a little awkward and all too happy to hear the sound of the woman he loved wandering around the remainder of their living room and muttering to herself and her phone. The rest of the gang was too curious and nosy for their own good, following after him and generally wanting to see what kind of smack down was about to occur between both Potts and Stark.

They were slightly disappointed when they found that both had a disappeared, though their voices could be heard from some other room, muffled as they were.

Steve was steadily becoming the opposite of Stark's biggest fan.

"Just. . .just what was that? How can he do that?" He was frowning and grinding his teeth and it wasn't necessarily a good look on him. "Who does he think he is? Going off and flirting with some other. . .women when he's obviously in a relationship?"

Thor had his arms folded over his chest and it was a remarkably imposing sight. "While we on Asgard may partake in a variety of customs that you mortals might find offense, but perhaps none are so heinous as debauchery."

Clint wanted to mutter something about yeah sure, okay, if you say so. Like those myths about your 'brother' having horses for kids weren't weird or anything, but he, along with Bruce, who only looked mildly green at the moment, held his tongue and turned his gaze to Natasha seeing as she apparently had all of the answers. The other men took Hawkeye's lead and turned to her and her apparent wisdom. Steve could have had a field day ranting and badmouthing Stark, but didn't want to wind up hurting Pepper with all of this. In his mind, Tony had already hurt her enough.

Natasha Romanoff didn't like being put on the spot and damn if these guys didn't know it.

She waited a few beats and then gave a breathless sigh.

"It's. . .complicated."

Roger's brow furrowed. "It doesn't look so complicated to me. He has a girlfriend. He flirted with some other dames. That's about it."

Barton bit the inside of his cheek to keep from snickering at the use of the word dames.

"Not exactly," Natasha muttered, Thor piecing two-and-two together as he figured out what a dame was and Banner just looked like he wanted to be just about anywhere else at the moment. "Look, Stark can be a narcissistic, egotistical, volatile, self-centered, complicated son of a bitch, sure, whatever, but in Pepper's eyes he's apparently some decent guy. That's great and all but there are a few outstanding circumstances surrounding their relationship that complicates it. For starters, he's her boss and she's his former assistant or whatever she is now, and them coming out with their relationship not only reflects poorly on their company, but on them as well. To some degree Stark has to put up the front on him still being a playboy or what-have-you because otherwise people would begin assuming things more than they already are. They can't come out with their relationship just yet."

She shrugged offhandedly and Steve had the nerve to look ashamed of himself. "Pretending to work for some people for a short period of time actually teaches you a few things about them. Go figure."

As he regarded her carefully, Clint noticed that she was uncomfortable. She was hardly ever uncomfortable.

"There's more to their relationship than what you see, and that's what makes it so difficult."

Bruce simply nodded—he'd a similar, brief conversation with Tony back in the helicarrier's lab before everything had been shot to hell so therefore he'd already had most of the puzzle to put together—as something appeared to click in Thor's brain after the woman's speech.

Natasha would have punched him and/or maimed him had the odds been in her favor and there hadn't been witnesses just as Tony charged back into the living room with Pepper Potts hot on his heels.

"Ah, so this is similar to your relationship with friend Clint Barton?"