Tony leaned his hip against the counter containing the all-precious coffee maker in the faculty lounge early Wednesday morning. "Did Lover Boy tell you about my great plan? Because it's a great plan."

Carol Danvers shot him a look so dark and evil that he may have felt his balls retract slightly into his body. "One—don't call him that. Two—I'm not turning every Sunday into 'Hang out with Tony' time."

Tony rolled his eyes in an exaggerated manner. "Did Rhodey fail to mention that this is an annual brunch?"

Carol snorted. "Please, we all know how you are. Payday happy hours were supposed to be a once–a-month thing until you demanded it happen every other week. Pretty sure you'd want it to happen daily if Pepper wasn't around to rein you in."

His jaw dropped and his hands went to his chest in a display of mock horror, but deep down, they both knew she was right. "You're still coming though, right?"

"You're paying for the booze? I'll be there." She was almost out the door before she spun on her heel and leveled a glare at him. "James told me about the dress code. If you're lying about that to put me in a skirt when no one else—"

"Not a lie." Tony even went so far as to make a cross over his heart. "And for what it's worth, you looked awesome in that skirt." He was pretty sure Carol flipping him the bird wasn't the best way to say thank you, but it was all he was going to get.

He snagged a cup of caffeinated sludge for himself and burrowed into his coat before stepping outside for bus duty. The other specials teachers were huddled together on the sidewalk. "Perfect," Tony announced. "I can kill four birds with one stone." The teachers stepped out of the circle to let him in and gave him expectant looks. "This Sunday, ten-thirty, Four Seasons. Bring your respective hotties—or Bartons—for the First Annual Everybody's Getting Laid So Let's Eat and Celebrate Extravaganza."

"It's never a good sign when he uses the word extravaganza," Coulson muttered.

"Hey," Tony argued. "It's going to be a classy extravaganza. Pepper's doing most of the detail work—"

"You mean she's putting limits on what you can and can't do," Natasha pointed out.

"—so you know it's not going to be too overboard," Tony finished.

"Please tell me there isn't going to be an event involving a fish bowl and car keys," Steve said.

Tony shook his head. "We'd have to have multiple fish bowls based on orientation. And we know how your fish bowl would end up, but I'm sure you and Coulson wouldn't mind the excuse to act on your mutual man crushes." He ignored the joint eye roll he was given from the librarian and the art teacher and turned to Natasha. "How do you think it would go between Bucky and Barton?"

"There'd be a lot of talking," she answered.

May Parker shrugged. "I'd still watch it."

Tony's grin increased in size threefold. "I want to be you when I grow up, you know that right?"

"Please, you couldn't handle being me," May responded before sauntering off to meet the first bus that pulled into the asphalt loop in front of the school.

Once all the kids were safely inside the building and the buses had pulled away, Tony snuck into the main office for his last round of invitations. Thankfully, he was able to catch Darcy between phone calls of parents letting the school know about their sick kids. "Hey," he greeted, "quick thing."

"Has to be quick, announcements are in ninety seconds."

He raised his hands in a surrendering gesture. "Wouldn't dream of depriving you of the favorite part of your day. This Sunday, Four Seasons, couples brunch. You and Fabio's brother are more than welcome to join in."

"What are you talking about?"

He shrugged. "You're dating Thor's brother. It's all the Odinchildren talk about. I mean Girl Odinson even showed me how she's practicing walking down the aisle when she gets to be the flower girl at the wedding, and the boys ask if I have cousins and, if so, what I do with them."

"Oh, god, please stop talking," Darcy moaned. Her head went into her hands, but before it did, Tony noticed her pale skin had become even more translucent.

"Look, I know the kid thing is a lot, but even I can admit there are worse families to marry into."

"Stop. Talking." She took a moment to compose herself before looking up once more at Tony. "We're not dating."

"I'd hope not, because if we were Pepper would murder both of us. I mean, if she wasn't around—God forbid—it's not like I wouldn't think of asking you out, if I were wanting to check off the uber-young square on my dating Bingo card, but—"

"Oh my god!" she shouted at him. "Stop." She took a deep breath and looked around to make sure no one was paying attention to them after her outburst. "I'm not dating Loki."

"Who's Loki?"

"Thor's brother. We are not dating."

"That's not what word on the street is. Sounds like you either need to start hitting that, or you've got some 'splaining to do, Lucy."

"No sh—kidding," she sighed.

Bruce turned in his empty classroom to find Natasha hovering in the doorway. Her hands were buried in her black fleece coat's pockets and snowflakes from an early spring snow were melting in her hair and eyelashes. The snowburst, as the news media had called it to sensationalize things, had hit at just the right time in the late morning to have the district worry about buses running during the school day. As a result, he'd had his morning kids all day. They'd been a giant ball of crazy beyond excited to spend a whole day at school like the "big kids" or in near tears because they were terrified they'd have to stay at school forever. After a few hours of extreme cat herding and making up lessons on the fly, seeing Natasha with red cheeks and messy hair—as soft as she could ever look at work—was a most welcome sight.

"Hi," he breathed.

She slipped into his room and shut the door behind her. "Tony come talk to you this morning?"

"The brunch thing? Yeah. Why?"

She shrugged. "We haven't really done the couply thing. At least, not around others. I don't even know who all knows we're together."

He stuck his hands in his pockets and rolled from his balls of his feet back to his heels as he thought about it. "Tony does, and obviously Pepper."

Natasha nodded. "She texted me last weekend that Tony kept talking about how you're dating 'Red' to Carol and the guy she's with, but Carol hasn't mentioned anything to me about it."

"She was probably too busy plotting Tony's death to put two and two together," Bruce reasoned.

"Probably."

"You told James, right?" he asked.

"I tell James everything." He raised his eyebrows in a challenge, and she rolled her eyes. "Not everything. He'd feel the need to reciprocate, and there some things I never want to know about Steve. Ever."

Bruce smiled. "But Steve knows too?"

"Sure. And Clint and Phil. They keep asking when you're going to join us for weekly Tuesday dinners."

A hand left his pocket to twirl in the air, a trait he undoubtedly picked up from Tony. He tried to come up with an answer other than the truth of I don't want to face a firing squad, but nothing come out of him.

"Wuss," she said.

"Pretty much."

"Clint said that if you keep it up it's obvious you don't care about the cow and only want free milk."

"And where exactly did you leave a bruise on him for calling you a cow?" The sparkle in her eyes was all he needed for confirmation that she'd left him with a mark. "I promise I'll come to dinner. Eventually."

"I don't care. We see enough of each other here; I don't know why we need to hang out all the time outside of work."

He nodded, but didn't respond. He and Clint were the ones who'd been at the school the longest in their circle of friends, and Bruce could clearly remember what life was like when you didn't have much of a social life outside of work. He was grateful for the way things were now and the found family he'd adopted.

"Who does that leave?" Bruce asked.

She gave a half-shrug. "Depends on who he invited. For sure Carol and the Street guy."

"Rhodes," Bruce quietly corrected.

"The Coulsons," Natasha continued as she counted couples off on her fingers. "James and Steve, us, obviously the Starks."

"What about Peter Parker?"

Natasha's head tilted to one side as she considered the thought briefly. "I don't think so. The Parker kid can be a little… bouncy. I think Tony's worried that he might break a valuable or something."

"May seeing anyone?"

She snorted. "May doesn't usually date someone; she usually dates someones. Don't think she'll be there."

"I think Tony mentioned Darcy when he rambled a list of invitees to me this morning."

A single red eyebrow arched at the statement. "Darcy's seeing someone?"

"According to George Odinson, she's practically married to his Uncle Loki."

He watched the barely-there signs of Natasha's thoughts churning a moment before she shook her head. "If Darcy was getting laid, we'd all know about it."

Bruce nodded and shifted his gaze to the kidney-shaped table to his right. The surface was littered with this week's advanced reading selection, Fox and His Friends. He tried to distract himself with studying the cover of the books, but his mind could only think about how to carefully craft his next question.

"Do you not want people to know we're together?" He didn't realize the words had left him till he heard her take in a quick breath. Slowly, his eyes rose to meet hers, but the contact only held for a second before it was her turn to look away.

"I—" She paused to sigh and run fingers through her hair. "You know how when you were a kid and wanted to show off a new toy, but you were terrified to take it with you to school because some other kid might break it?"

"Not really."

"Me neither, but I swear I break up that kind of fight at least three times a week on the playground." Quietly and slowly, she crossed the distance between them. "I like what we have, and it's special to me."

"But you don't want to share it with others?" he asked skeptically.

Her shoulders slumped at his question. "Bruce, we friend-fucked our way into a relationship. It's not the best start to a this is how we became a couple story."

"So? Tony and Pepper married over a false positive on a pregnancy test. Phil only agreed to a date after Clint spent a year physically throwing himself at him. Who cares how the story starts?"

She picked at her nail polish while softly answering. "I don't want them to think badly of you."

He gently nudged her chin up to look him in the eye. "The people I care about the most know how we started, and they don't care. And neither do I. I am by far the luckiest man in the world. If I were Tony, I'd be renting every bulletin boards within a hundred miles and plaster your picture on them with the caption I'm dating her." He ignored the look she gave him and kept talking. "But even doing that wouldn't be able to convey what an amazing and strong person you are."

She stepped forward and leaned into him. He tensed at her still-cold nose leeching heat from his neck. "Don't deserve you," she whispered as her arms snaked around his waist.

"You really don't," he joked as he hugged around the shoulders. His foot was able to move out of the way in time to avoiding her stomping his toes.

"You know we're not a couple, right?" Darcy asked, and Loki stopped chewing.

The whole way to the movie theater, she'd run through the conversation in her head, playing and replaying until she had everything perfect. She figured she'd lead into it gracefully, talk about how much she enjoyed getting to know Loki and watching movies in his cramped little apartment and talking until two in the morning, and how she really, honestly wanted to spend time with him long-term. And once he got all sweet and soft-eyed—not exactly something she'd pictured from Thor's unapproachable brother, at least before she'd gotten to know him—she'd segue into the part about how she really wanted them to just be friends.

Except then, he'd paid for her tickets, again. And bought them a popcorn to share—again. And touched her arm every time he spotted an Easter egg throwback to the previous couple movies (which they maybe marathoned all last weekend), and held the door for her at the burger place, and ordered the appetizer she liked best even though he'd complained the last three times about not liking it, and—

The words'd just jumped out of her mouth, okay?

Across the table, Loki swallowed. He reached for his beer afterward, and Darcy poked the puddle of ketchup on her plate with a fry.

"That maybe came out a little wrong," she said after a painfully long stretch of silence.

"Did it really? I hadn't noticed." His voice sounded cold and snide, and she looked up to glare at him. When she raised her eyebrows at him, he sighed. "And that was perhaps a bit unfair."

"You think?"

"You tell me, as you're the one so concerned with our relationship."

"Our— Loki, we don't have a relationship!" She threw up her hands. "Your nephews have been telling everyone who will listen that I'm your girlfriend, and every time I try to prove them wrong, they have more reasons. The cupcake that one night, the flowers after I had that fight with Mom—" He dropped his eyes to his plate at that one. "—the 'joint' present from the two of us when Alva was throwing up last weekend. We're way past the point where they'll believe me when I say we're not together."

"They're children."

"They're children who've told all my coworkers that we're together. People who invited me and my boyfriend—that I don't have—to Sunday brunch." He flinched a little, and Darcy dragged her fingers through her hair. "Look, I just— You know, right?"

"Know what?"

"That we're not actually together."

He shrugged. "Certainly," he replied tightly, and went back to his burger.

Darcy watched him eat in silence for a couple minutes, her own burger untouched and a weird feeling churning around in the bottom of her stomach. She pushed her plate away to lean her arms on the table, but he kept his eyes focused somewhere around the base of his beer bottle. "Loki," she said. He kept chewing. "Loki, can we at least talk instead of you being all—that?"

She waved a hand at him, and he finally glanced up. Her throat felt a whole lot thicker and stickier when she realized how distant and sort of lost his looked. "I'm not sure I can stop being whatever it is you don't like," he said quietly.

"That's not what I—"

"That's the point of this conversation, isn't it? To remind me that our time together falls short of whatever you're looking for? Because trust me, I understand perfectly now that you've explained it so succinctly."

"Oh, for the— Are you listening to me, or are you just starting at butthurt and going from there?" Darcy demanded. Loki blinked at her for a second, and she rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I said butthurt."

"You swore you'd never say it again after Skyfall."

"I'm sorry, but Silva was totally the textbook definition of butthurt, and that will never change," she retorted, and he laughed quietly. She pushed her arms forward far enough that she could poke the back of his hand, grinning when he glanced up at her. "I like you a lot," she said gently. "You're fun to be around, and kind of great at dragging me out of my whole mopey adulthood-deferred sulking thing. I don't have to be on all the time when we hang out." He smiled, and she poked him again. "But I don't— I mean, we're not really—"

She waved her hand again, and Loki's lips quirked into a tiny smirk. "You've never let someone down easy before, I take it?"

"Are you kidding? I'm the girl who always has to hear the you're a really great friend, emphasis on that last word speech." He chuckled, and she scowled at him. "What?"

He shook his head. "I cannot fathom someone only wanting to be your platonic friend."

"Trust me, it happens. All the time. The last guy I made out with before you was Jane's creepy intern." When Loki raised his eyebrows, she pointed a finger at him. "No. No, that is a story for when I've had a whole bottle of cheap wine and am laying on your living room floor."

Loki finally laughed. "That can be arranged," he replied, and it sounded a lot like a promise. When his laughter died away, though, the lost expression flooded his face again. "Generally," he continued, "I hear quite a bit about how I am good enough company but nothing worth the long-term effort of a relationship. There's usually an empty promise that we'll still be friends, followed by—"

"Uh, not an empty promise," Darcy cut him off, and he pressed his lips together. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean it. I like hanging out with you. I just can't see us, you know, jumping into bed together. I mean, unless we were both really drunk and needed to sleep somewhere softer than your awful futon." His mouth quirked into a smile. "I don't want to stop hanging out with you, I just want to make sure we're on the same pagewith our hanging out."

"We are on the same page," he agreed, nodding. He glanced away for a second, staring out the window. "To be honest, I suspected that you— Well. I'll just say that I suspected we had different aspirational goals for our friendship." His gaze flickered back to her. "But I had hoped you genuinely wanted to at least be friends."

Darcy grinned. "I don't marathon a fantasy series for just any old friend, you know," she replied, and the light finally hit his eyes when he grinned back.

They were walking out to the car after finally—finally—splitting the dinner bill when Loki asked, "Which one of us should explain our non-relationship to my niece and nephews?"

Scowling, she glanced up at him. "Whoever loses our next game of Words with Friends," she answered, and then elbowed him when he grinned.

"I don't know which one I like better: the e-mail tilted 'sleeping with the enemy,' or the one that says 'I know who you did last Saturday.'"

Carol glanced up from the middle school testing forms she was starting to prepare for her fifth graders and discovered Jasper Sitwell standing in her doorway, his cell phone dangling from his fingers. They stared at each other for a moment, his eyes sharp behind his glasses and her face blissfully innocent—at least she hoped—until he crossed into her closet of a classroom.

Then, she rolled her eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about.

"Yeah, you do," he replied, and she turned back to the forms. "You can't play dumb. I thought maybe Drew got into your e-mail to screw with both of us, but then I reread them. She definitely doesn't know how to spell backstabbing fuck."

Carol bristled. "You know that's my best friend, right?"

"Yes, like I know you're pissed at me and dealing with it like a twelve-year-old girl." She snorted at him. The next time she looked up from her forms, he was looming in front of her desk. "You going to tell me what I did?"

"Take a stab in the dark."

"If I could do that, I wouldn't've dragged my ass all the way up here to ask you," he shot back. She rolled her eyes again and shoved the forms out of the way. Sitwell raised his eyebrows. "Okay, see, now I know I've pissed you off, because that—"

"You're sleeping with Maria Hill," Carol spat, and Sitwell shut right up.

The anger in her own voice made her flinch, and when he flinched too, she heaved a sigh and pushed up out of her chair. She'd spent a day and a half trying to figure out how to talk to Sitwell about his stupid dinner date with Hill. She'd even stooped to the all-time low of describing the situation to Jessica (without using names, because Jessica'd never quite learned how to keep a secret).

Her friend'd laughed at her. "Confront him without confronting him!" she'd goaded, and handed Carol another too-full glass of red wine. "Enhanced interrogation techniques. Drop hints and watch him squirm."

They'd finished the bottle of wine before Carol'd sent the e-mails.

Her head, in retaliation for the wine, ached all day.

She dragged her hand through her hair and paced across her classroom. "You're supposed to be stopping these kids from terrorizing their classmates—great job of that, by the way—and then the second anyone turns their back, you're out wining and dining their mother. Super professional."

"Says the woman who sent me cryptic e-mails," Sitwell retorted tightly.

Carol pointed a finger at him. "Don't change the subject."

"What subject?" he demanded, raising his hands. Thinly-disguised anger crept into his tone. "Are you accusing me of doing something improper? Because last I checked, nothing said I can't date another consenting adult who happens to have kids in our damn school." Carol felt her jaw tighten, and she crossed her arms over her chest. "Or maybe you're saying that I'm not dealing with Colin and Keith's bullshit. Is that it? Because every time they've even inched across the line, I've—"

"They're menaces to society, Sitwell!" she interrupted. He rolled his eyes, and she jabbed her finger toward him again. "No, they are. They look for the weakest kid in the crowd and they pick her off every time. And now, they're going to look at the guy who's supposed to stop them from doing this and realize that there's no line anymore because he's screwing around with their mother!"

Sitwell's jaw clenched, his shoulders squaring. "We're dating, not going to some goddamn sex club in fishnets, so don't—"

She scoffed. "Does it matter?"

"Yes!" For the first time in the conversation, his voice raised past the point of practiced control, and Carol felt her mouth snap shut. His hands clenched, and he dug them into his hips. "I know you're not really one for the milk of human fucking kindness—"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, go to hell, Jasper."

"—but have you ever stopped for five minutes to think that maybe they're also little ass clowns outside this building? That maybe she's gotten dealt a shit sandwich and she's doing the best she can?" Carol started to open her mouth, and he shook his head. "No. Because when you work with Carol Danvers, there are two ways to do things: her way, or no goddamn way at all."

The last words hit Carol in the gut like a lead weight, but Jasper ignored how hard she swallowed to step up in front of her. They stared at each other, his eyes dark and his hands still gripping hard at his hips. "I am still doing my job," he said simply. "If they hurt someone, I will deal with them. If that means I call their mom and bring her in, then that's what I do. The kids here are a lot more important that my fucking relationship." He paused, his lips pressing together for a second. "I just thought you knew that about me already."

"Jasper," Carol started to say, but he shook his head and, turning on his heel, strode right out of the classroom. The door slammed hard behind him, leaving her standing there, her fingernails digging into her forearm and her eyes trained on the closed door.

When she was sure he wouldn't come back in, she kicked her chair hard enough that it smacked it into the wall. "Dammit."

Darcy swore so long and hard when Loki played qintars on a triple word score that her mother came to see what was the matter. "Fucking cheater," she'd muttered repeatedly once she'd convinced her mom that everything was fine. Not that Darcy could blame him for pulling out the big guns during their game, but she wasn't at all eager to have to break Odinbaby hearts with the news that she and Loki weren't actually going to be together forever.

She sent a text to Thor, knowing Jane would be out of town presenting at a conference, to see if she could bring some pizzas over for dinner and have a little chat. Part of her felt a little crappy for padding the news with pepperoni and cheese, but she was a Lewis and eating your feelings was just a law of the universe. Her crappy feelings only increased in size when Alva greeted her at the door with "Where's Uncle Loki? Isn't he with you?"

Darcy'd spent dinner listening to the kids talk about what had happened at school that week, especially George and Alva's adventures of getting to stay at school for the whole day on Wednesday. Henry talked about his classmate's birthday and how the entire class was invited to go roller skating tomorrow. Darcy nodded and laughed in all the appropriate places, but she didn't miss how quiet Thor was or how he avoided looking at her. Once everyone was finished, she conned the kids into helping her with the dishes by turning it into a game. When George asked if they could have one of the cookies she'd baked that afternoon, Darcy answered, "We need to chat first. To the couch!"

The kids raced to snag their seats and settled themselves with minimal shoving. Darcy cleared a spot on the coffee table so she could face them all, and she tried not to feel nervous at the way Thor slowly eased himself into the armchair to her left. "What are we talking about?" Alva asked as she swung her legs over the edge of the cushion.

"We need to talk about me and your Uncle Loki," Darcy answered.

"Are you going to babysit us again?" Henry asked. "I mean, it's cool when it's just you, but it's really fun when both of you are here."

"No, I don't know if—"

"Do we all get to go to the movies?" George nearly-shouted to be heard. "Uncle Loki said if we were really good, you and him would take us to see a movie."

"No, and he never told me about that."

"Are you in love?" Alva stretched the last word out for all of its worth.

"No," Darcy snapped frustration, all the words she planned and rehearsed flying out the window. She really just needed to stop trying to plan speeches. At least on the topic of breaking hearts, apparently. "No, we're not in love," she said in a gentler tone, but it still wasn't soft enough to keep Alva's face from sliding into something akin to the disappointment of crushed dreams. "Look," Darcy sighed as she ran fingers through her hair. "Your uncle and I are good friends, and that's all we've ever been. He's never been my boyfriend, and he's never going to be my boyfriend."

"But you kissed," Henry argued. "If a boy kisses you, then that makes them your boyfriend."

"Guys, it's not that simple. Don't get me wrong—your uncle is awesome. I totally want to be friends with him and hang out, but we're not dating." She paused to look at Alva. "And we're definitely not going to get married."

"But we've been telling everyone that you're dating," George complained.

"Yeah, don't I know it. If you could not do that anymore, I'd appreciate it."

"Why don't you want to date Uncle Loki?" Alva asked quietly.

Darcy didn't know what hurt more: her tone of voice, or the way her face screamed of impending tears. She reached over to rest a hand on the girl's tiny knee. "Sometimes you meet people, and they are just awesome. But even though you get along really well and hang out all the time together, you still may not want to kiss them. It doesn't make them any less awesome, it's just that that's all the further the relationship is going to go."

"Can we eat cookies now?" George whined, clearly over the conversation.

"Yeah, sure."

Once the kids consumed the sweets, Darcy made sure she was still welcome at George and Henry's indoor soccer game the next day, which she thankfully was. When the boys ran off to change into their pajamas, Darcy noticed Alva was still in her seat with her chin tucked to her chest. Darcy shot a look at Thor, but he just ground his jaw and shook his head. "Hey," Darcy said as she poked Alva in the arm. "You okay?"

When she looked up at Darcy, her eyes were wet. "I've been practicing to be your flower girl."

Darcy's shoulders slumped, and she felt like a pile of shit. "C'mere," she said as she waved the girl over. She pulled Alva onto her lap, and the girl burrowed her face in her chest. "Listen, when I get married, you are guaranteed to be my flower girl. Even if you're thirty when it happens, you can totally be my flower girl. And hey—when your Uncle Loki finds someone more awesome than me, which is not that hard, you can totally be his flower girl, too. That doubles your chances at flower girling." She brushed curls out of the girl's face and Alva met her eyes with a sniffle. "You still mad at me?"

"Guess not."

"Good," Darcy replied with a hug. "Because I would absolutely hate it if you were mad at me."

Thor shooed her away to put her pajamas on, and Darcy put on her coat. Thor walked her to the door, and Darcy could no longer stand how quiet he had been all night. "I take it you're pissed at me, too?"

He sighed before answering. "I do not like seeing my brother hurt; it doesn't bring up pleasant memories. But," he added as he looked her in the eye, "it was quite nice giving into the hope that you would become an official member of the family. We all love you; we'd be extremely proud to have you around permanently." He shrugged his mighty shoulders. "Alva was not the only one hoping to take part in a wedding."

Darcy wrapped her arms around his waist and smiled when his arms landed on her shoulders. "Love you, too, Big Guy."

"That might be the greatest thing you've ever told me," Clint laughed, and Phil rolled his eyes as he accepted a mimosa from the waiter.

Phil knew he should have expected Tony Stark's so-called First Annual and Very Official Couple's Brunch to be ostentatious and ridiculous, but he still hadn't expected Tony to go this level of overboard. Rather than just arranging a group brunch reservation at the local Four Seasons like a normal person, Tony'd rented out one of the side rooms. A massive table covered with still-empty warming pans—enough that the food that belonged inside could probably feed a small island nation—stretched along one wall, plush couches and chairs were arranged along the other, and a number of windows overlooked the hotel courtyard and the barely-there dusting of snow from the other afternoon. Another enormous table in the middle of the room boasted ten place settings. Waiters wandered by, offering mimosas, iced tea, and various bacon-wrapped appetizers.

Clint helped himself to three water chestnuts and handed one to Phil.

Carol Danvers, on the other hand, rolled her eyes. "I just told you that I practically skinned Sitwell alive," she replied.

"And I would've paid money to see it," Clint responded. "Did Drew get it on camera or anything?"

"I hate you," she muttered.

He pointed his water chestnut at her. "You love me, you just hate to admit it."

"Okay, so, first rule of Brunch Club is that there are no weird threesomes or foursomes at Brunch Club unless Bruce and Red are looking for a genius and his super sexy wife," Tony suddenly interrupted, appearing between Carol and Clint. A tall man in a dark green dress shirt and black slacks stood at his side. "Rhodey, I think you know your girlfriend—"

"You have the subtlety of a train wreck," Carol muttered.

"—but since this is the last stop on the handshake rounds until Rogers and Barnes decide to climb out of their sex hovel and join us: former Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, meet Clint Barton and his little wife, Philomena."

Clint's gaze unsubtly swept over Rhodes's body before he swallowed without chewing. "This is the guy you're dating?" he asked.

"Crime against humanity, I know, but he likes girls who can beat him up in bed." Tony deftly stepped away from Rhodes's glare. "I think I hear a friend who doesn't want to murder me calling."

"Do you actually have those?" Phil asked.

Tony scowled at him. "I'm not dignifying that with a response."

"It means no," Rhodes replied dryly, and Phil couldn't help grinning. Carol rolled her eyes slightly, a smile poking at the corners of her mouth; it only grew when the man at her side pressed his hand to her back. "You telling your friends about your faux pas with the assistant principal?" he asked once Tony had trotted away.

"Did you get it on video?" Clint asked in response. Carol huffed and grabbed a drink from the nearest passing waiter while the rest of them laughed. "But seriously," he pressed, "you can't burn a bridge with Sitwell. That'll bite you in the ass in record time."

"I think someone else you know told you that last night," Rhodes commented.

Carol elbowed him lightly, and he grinned. "Do you think I don't know all this?" she demanded. Clint, Rhodes, and Phil himself all raised eyebrows at her, and she sighed. "I just can't believe the nerve of him. He doesn't just pick a mom, he picks their mom. And I don't care what he says, there's no way to totally separate relationship and work when you're disciplining your girlfriend's kids."

"Maybe," Clint replied, "but you've gotta remember that the heart wants what the heart wants."

Rhodes snorted slightly. "You get that off a bumper sticker or something?"

"Fortune cookie, actually," Phil provided.

Clint knocked their shoulders together, the toothpick from his last water chestnut hanging off his bottom lip. "Somebody's not getting his post-brunch blowjob if he keeps that up."

"Somebody else has forgotten that his threat can be reciprocated," Phil retorted. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Carol and Rhodes grinning, but he was too focused on Clint's cheeky little smirk to really care. When he turned back to the other couple, though, he shrugged. "Clint's right, though," he added. "You can't always choose who you're attracted to—or the baggage they bring along with them. Jasper's reasonable. He won't pick his girlfriend over his job. He knows better."

"Unless," Clint chimed in, "she puts out after brunch. Unlike some people I know."

Rhodes laughed, and Carol rolled her eyes. "I am so ashamed of knowing you people," she grumbled. Clint beamed at her and stole another water chestnut from the next tray that passed by.

When Steve and Bucky finally wandered into the room a few minutes later—the latter with hair definitely belonging to a "sex hovel"—Carol mutteredbetter beat Tony to it and dragged Rhodes away to meet them. Phil finished off the last sip of his mimosa just as Clint leaned bodily against his arm. "Word on the street is that Darcy broke off her not-relationship with Odinson's kid brother," he commented quietly.

Phil glanced over. "What street is that the word on?"

"The one where she keeps Old Hottie in the loop so I'll play sand volleyball in her league again this summer and take off my shirt."

He flashed Phil a winning grin, and Phil shook his head. "No more mimosas."

"Says the guy who's still in the running for some post-brunch hanky-panky," Clint retorted. Something caught his eye, though, and he grabbed Phil's hand to drag him across the room less than a full second later. Phil almost protested until he realized that the commotion from Steve and Bucky arriving had left Natasha and Bruce standing alone by the windows.

They were talking quietly and only really noticed Clint and Phil approach when Clint gently pressed his shoulder against Natasha's. Phil decided he'd definitely need to track Clint's mimosa intake for the rest of the morning.

"The over-under on you two showing up was pretty sketchy," he said.

"He means he's glad to see you," Phil offered.

Clint frowned at him, but both Bruce and Natasha smiled. "I think we at least speak conversational Barton by now," Bruce said.

"There's no such thing as conversational gibberish," Natasha returned. Phil caught laughter dancing in the corners of her eyes, though, and he couldn't help but smile. "Did Phil already cut you off the free booze?"

"No," Clint answered.

"Yes," Phil corrected. Clint flashed him his best puppy-dog eyes, and he ignored it to glance between Bruce and Natasha. They stood just far enough apart that their shoulders didn't brush. "It's good you came," he commented after a few seconds.

"I think Tony had a three-step plan to drag us here if we didn't volunteer," Bruce replied, dropping his eyes toward his glass of iced tea.

"It was at least five steps," Natasha returned, flashing him a sneaky, bright-eyed glance. Bruce snorted a little laugh, his mouth curling into a smile. Phil couldn't remember the last time he'd witnessed Natasha sharing a private joke with someone besides Clint and Bucky—two men who practically counted as her brothers. After a moment, though, she shrugged. "I figured if you can take Clint out into public all the time, the least we can do is come to brunch."

"Hey!" Clint protested. He held a toothpick dangling the second half of a bacon-wrapped date. "I'm a delightful brunch partner."

Phil raised his eyebrows. "You've mentioned post-brunch sex acts once every ten minutes since we got up this morning."

"So less frequently than usual," Bruce noted. Natasha snorted a laugh over Clint's surprised blinking until Clint himself burst out laughing. "Sorry," Bruce added, but his wry smile proved how not sorry he was.

Clint grinned. "This is why we need you at our dinners. Otherwise, it's just these two—" Clint gestured between Phil and Natasha with his toothpick. "—jabbering while I seriously consider taking out my hearing aids."

"You talk less when you do, which is nice," Natasha said with a shrug, and when Clint elbowed her, she broke into a warm, genuine smile.

The buffet spread, once placed in the warmers, was just as ridiculous as Phil anticipated: there were two kinds of scrambled eggs, plus bacon, sausage, smoked sausage, ham, pancakes, waffles, biscuits with country gravy, grits, oatmeal, and a truly shameful amount of fruit. "I promise, the leftovers are going directly to the local soup kitchen," Pepper said, holding up her hands in defense.

Tony stopped piling meat onto his plate to stare at her. "You know I intend to eat three quarters of this myself, don't you?"

"And I intend to be somewhere else while you complain you're dying," she replied, and patted him on the shoulder.

Once everyone was seated—an endeavor that took a lot longer than necessary thanks to the fact that both Bucky and Rhodes's nameplates saidJames and Steve, in what Phil assumed was still a sex-hazy stupor, had asked why Tony split up two of the couples—Tony stood at the head of the table with a glass of iced tea and knocked his knife against it a few times.

"He knows this isn't a wedding, right?" Clint muttered.

Phil patted his thigh under the table. "I think he's trying to be mature and welcoming," he murmured back.

"Just for that crack, Coulson, I will be having surprise sex in the supply closet at least three times next week," Tony interrupted. Everyone laughed while, very subtly, Pepper shook her head and mouthed no, he won't. Phil bit back a grin. "Anyway, the man who clearly and repeatedly doesn't deserve Barton is right in that I am trying to be kind of welcoming," he continued. "I may, in recent months, have been reminded by no fewer than four people at this table that part of being, you know, a friend is being supportive of your friend's stuff. Professional stuff, personal stuff, relationship stuff—" He waved a hand. "And maybe I have not always qualified as being supportive of all that."

At the other end of the table from Phil and Clint, Bucky frowned. "Did you have a lobotomy between Friday and today?" he asked.

Tony rolled his eyes. "You let a guy have a little no-holds barred sex with somebody who looks like Rogers—"

"It's been more than a little," Bucky retorted while the tips of Steve's ears turned bright red.

"Once again, things I don't need to know about your boyfriend," Natasha complained, shaking her head.

Across the table from her, Rhodes started to open his mouth, but Carol cut him off by saying, "Yes, they are always like this."

"Can we focus for just two seconds before my yearly quota of maturity flies out the window, please?' Tony cut them all off. Next to Phil, Clint snickered audibly, and Tony shot him an annoyed look. "My point is just that I want to be supportive of all your stuff, as individuals and as people in relationships not nearly as amazing as mine—"

"Not a contest, Tony," Pepper said under her breath, but she smiled anyway.

"—and that is why we're having our first annual brunch, right here and right now. And maybe next year, Rogers and Barnes will show up on time and with their flies closed."

Steve's face flared even redder, but everyone else—mostly led by Pepper—raised their glasses in response to Tony's strange, almost incoherent toast. When he finally sat down to eat, Clint leaned all the way into Phil's personal space until his lips almost brushed Phil's ear. "I think we do it in the closet four times next week, just to mess with him," he murmured.

Phil smiled very slowly. "If I leave you with any energy after brunch today," he replied, and squeezed Clint's thigh when Clint grinned.