Disclaimer: The characters and things you recognize in this story don't belong to me. They belong to Marvel and Janet Evanovich. I'm pretty sure you'll recognize which is which. Mistakes belong to me.

A/N: What can I say... this chapter is just for fun.


Chapter 28 - Blowing Off Steam

Jackie's POV

When I'd first received the phone call from Pepper weeks ago, asking if I could fast track an Avengers episode of my show, I had agreed. Over the years, Pepper and I had become friends. It had started when, despite my desires to be on the comedy scene, I was an up-and-coming network reporter, being sent out to gather stories for the big names of the network and Pepper was Tony's PA. We'd met one day when I saw Tony doing something he shouldn't in a public place with an admittedly willing woman. I'd decided not to pass the story along. I hadn't said anything to Pepper, hadn't even been aware that she knew what I'd seen and spent her week waiting for the story to break.

When the story didn't break, Pepper called to express her appreciation and take me out to lunch on Mr. Stark's dime. While sitting at lunch, she'd slipped me a tidbit of information, and I'd been able to take that and create quite the scoop for my network. One day, years later, a different scoop she offered was so huge that the head of the network had called me in and asked me what I wanted. I told him that I wanted an late night talk show somewhere that I didn't have to worry about filtering or censoring my observations and sense of humor.

And so, I'd been sent to be an associate in another similar show and begin to grow a name for myself. Through some brilliant social networking, including some very fortuitous mentions on Tony Stark's social media pages, I'd found myself with my own show much more quickly than expected. I was the youngest name in the late night TV game, and one of only a couple females when I started. Currently, I was the only woman left in late night. I didn't have to do comprehensive news coverage and could instead focus each episode on even just one fact or event I wanted to cover. While not all the stories I ran about Tony Stark, Stark Industries, and their related endeavors were always positive, they were always fair. And the stories never interfered with my friendship with Pepper- that was a deal she and I made early in our relationship.

Still, beyond a couple interviews with Tony, I'd really only dealt with Pepper. So when she'd called about the Avengers, I'd obviously agreed to help my friend and her friends out. The coverage they had been receiving elsewhere was ridiculously judgmental and speculative, and I felt it only just that they get a chance to address what was being said about them. Really, I'd had no idea what to expect from them, personality-wise. I was more than a little intimidated, but I knew it was a story and experience I couldn't possibly turn down. I'd pleasantly discovered that they were all wonderfully amicable people, with good senses of humor to boot and with whom I could already feel myself becoming close.

And Steph had introduced me to Woody. That man was 6 foot something of pure deliciousness with a drawl that made me melt in all the best ways. Still, he'd lived in Trenton, and I lived in Manhattan, so we'd been taking things slowly. We'd had a lot of fun at the club the day we met, including a little making out, but that'd been it. When he'd come back into town indefinitely to help protect Steph, he'd called. We'd managed a couple dates, but we were both still wary, not knowing how much time we'd be able to spend together regularly going forward.

Then he'd called and sworn me to secrecy, and let me know he was moving to Manhattan permanently. So we'd begun an actual relationship. It was still difficult, we both worked odd and long hours. And it was a little tricky and awkward at times that I was now even more entrenched with the lives of residents of Avengers Tower. Steph was thrilled to find out about my growing relationship with Woody, and had invited me out on a couple girls' outings and set up a very entertaining double date for us and our men.

Going out on the town with Steve and Steph was crazy. When I went out, I might get recognized by an odd person here or there, but usually it didn't happen. And when it did, they thought it was neat, but didn't turn into crazy fans on me. Woody had been able to get the night off, obviously, but with Steve and Steph there, the double date involved being watched constantly by several of Woody's coworkers, who I found to be intimidating presences. They were friendly, sure, but they were also stand-offish and I knew I'd yet to gain their trust. Woody was their brother, and they were not trusting people, especially when it came to the well-being of their friend and brother. Still, I was grateful for their presence when Steve and Steph were predictably recognized and a human barrier was put up between us and a steadily growing crush of people.

Somewhere among the weeks of knowing them, I'd found myself telling my staff to call me if anything major came up regarding the Avengers. Anytime. It didn't matter if it was 3AM, I wanted to know. I liked the Avengers, and while I still wouldn't outright lie on air for them, I had much more leeway in Late Night, journalistically speaking. I was only half journalist, half comedienne/entertainer, and I was happy to help the Avengers spin anything and everything I reasonably could. And so, I was pulled out of my thoughts while I'd been trying to fall asleep by my phone ringing.

Apparently someone was trying to use Steve and Steph to get herself seen and make a name for herself. Unfortunately, she was succeeding, and that was going to make things difficult for the new couple. I hung up my phone and immediately started cursing, grabbing my clothes that were scattered around the room. Woody sat up from the bed and asked, "what's the matter, Jackie? This is usually where you work on shutting down your brain, and I get to hold you while you sleep until I have to get up and go to work."

He stood up, and grabbed a pair of pants for himself, and I allowed myself a moment to appreciate his physique before I said, "Somebody is screwing with Steve and Steph, and I need to figure out a plan of attack in case Pepper calls and they want my help!"

"What do you mean?" he practically growled in response. And upon reflection, that really had been careless wording on my part because I knew the man was extremely protective of Steph. I'd just finished explaining what was going on to him when my phone rang again. It was my assistant telling me to turn on any local channel, so I gestured to Woody to follow me and walked into my living room.

Muffling my phone, I whispered to him, "camera crews were outside the Tower hoping to get video and a response from Steve, likely when he left for his morning run, when an alarm started going off by the driveway. Security is pushing people back and trying to get them to go indoors, but there are cameras there and news copters in the sky." We settled into the couch, and turned on the TV. Just a minute or so later both of our jaws dropped as we saw Steve flying down the street outside the Tower on his motorcycle, shield on his back and Steph following right behind him on another bike. By the time they made it out of sight of the cameras on the street outside the Tower, they'd been picked up by the News helicopter cameras.

I hung up the phone because my assistant had no more information than what we were watching, and scooted closer to Woody. He put one arm around my shoulder, and his other hand reached across his lap to hold onto my hand.

"What's that on her back?" I asked in a small whisper.

Woody leaned forward, inspecting the image in front of him. "I think they're… swords or daggers?"

Woody's phone rang and he answered it on speakerphone, "Yo".

"Hey, Ranger."

"Where are you?"

"I'm at Jackie's place, and you're on speakerphone."

"Okay. You watching this?"

"Yeah, that bike is toast." Ranger chuckled in the background and after Steph threw a dagger at the spider, Woody continued, "so I guess she chose her weapon."

"Yep."

"Definitely not a good day to be a mutant spider," I said, not really listening to them or expecting a response to the observation.

Woody left the phone open and no one said anything for a few minutes. Finally Woody said, "so, Jackie was trying to devise a plan to handle that Katherine chick when this all started and we got side-tracked by the show they're all putting on out there."

"Oh, yeah. What'd you have in mind, Jackie?"

"Well, I was going to see if I could dig anything up on Katherine so I could hopefully discredit her. I was also going to start putting out feelers to the people who were going to be on my show today and tomorrow, and see who would be willing to reschedule without burning up too much goodwill if Pepper called asking me to set up an interview. This is good though, this makes a much better story."

"It's actually even better than you know. Steph hates spiders," Ranger said in amusement. "She's terrified of them."

"I can have some fun with that," I replied.

"We're recording this, obviously, and Tank is outside Jackie's apartment now in an SUV. Sorry to do this on you off hours, but Woody, I need you on crowd control to get the team back into the Tower safely. Jackie, Pepper says she'd love to have you here to watch with the rest of the friends in the meantime."

Woody looked at me and I nodded, so he said, "sure thing, Boss. Tell Tank we'll be down within five." I dashed around the room, trying to get dressed in actual clothes presentable for the public, and Woody stepped up behind me and slid his hands around my waist, "you don't have to come with me if you want to catch some sleep."

"I know, but they're my friends now too and I want to make sure they're all okay. And if they want to turn this into a distraction from the other story, I'll have plenty to do that will be more easily done from The Tower anyway," I reasoned, turning in his arms to give him a thorough kiss.

"Okay," he murmured against my mouth, "but I'm calling Pepper in the car and making sure she knows that you can go to my rooms and take a nap at some point if you want. And I'd definitely recommend that you try."

I scoffed, knowing he'd had barely any sleep himself, but finally nodded in agreement so that he'd know I appreciated the offer at the very least. Thankfully, I hadn't been back from work long, so my briefcase was already packed. Once I'd quickly dressed and grabbed a travel toiletry bag, we were out the door. True to his word, Woody called Pepper to square away my access to his rooms as a nap location or quiet place to work if I needed it. I, in turn, called up the driver service my studio paid for and informed them of my pickup address change for the day.

Upon our arrival to the Tower, Woody escorted me up to the Avengers floor and gave me a kiss before heading to the Global Security Command Center. I walked over to the couch and greeted Jane, Darcy, and Pepper taking the drink Pepper offered me. I almost spit out the first sip looking down in surprise when I realized the coffee had a healthy dose of Irish cream liqueur in it. Looking at Pepper in surprise, she wiggled her eyebrows, so I shrugged and took another sip. Why not? This was basically an after-work cocktail as far as I was concerned since I'd yet to go to sleep.

We exchanged greetings while staring fixedly at the screen, and settled in to watch the battle that was still reigning heavily.

"Thor and Sif look like they're having the time of their lives," I said in amusement.

"Hell yeah they are!" Darcy replied, "They love it when they get to fight animals, the bigger the better. Ask either of them about bilgesnipe sometime, and they'll happily regale you with tales of slaughtering those 'repulsive beasts'."

A few moments later, the news camera, which had been staying tight on the actions of the Avengers, panned out then over to some kind of bizarre machine. There was a man inside a tall glass fortress feeding tiny spiders into a machine which would then pop them out in their giant form. As the news anchors were quick to point out, he still had a lot of spiders left in the cage.

Jane was muttering to herself, trying to figure out exactly what the machine was doing, but she sighed and said, "They're going to have to shut that thing down fast. The rate he's been inputting spiders has definitely increased. I just hope they don't damage it irreparably." I widened my eyes and stared at her in disbelief, and she just shrugged. "I want to study it, you know, for science!"

"For science!" Darcy shouted and raised her glass before taking a big drink out of what I strongly suspected was a mimosa made of much more champagne than orange juice.

I noticed that the women seemed a little edgier than I would have expected given how well the fight was going, when it suddenly hit me. "If I wasn't here, you'd be listening to their comms, wouldn't you?" Pepper sighed but nodded, so I offered, "It's no big deal, I can go down to Woody's room. Or even back to my building."

When all the women reassured me that they wanted me there, I said, "Well, if this is going to become a regular thing, I suggest we put on our thinking hats, Pepper, and come up with some kind of official NDA that will allow me to still cover you all but also hang out here."

"I already got something in the works when you started seeing Woody more seriously. Our lawyers are taking a final pass at it, then they'll send it to yours."

Knowing it was better to let that kind of thing go through lawyers even when my instinct was to just have her send it to me, I nodded my agreement.

We all gasped watching Steve heave Steph into the "safe zone" next to the machine, and when she pulled out her dagger to keep herself from rolling and sliding too far and into the machine, Pepper simply put her head in her hands.

"Steve's not going to like that when he sees the replay," she said. After looking at me and getting my acknowledgement of being off the records, she called out, "JARVIS, when this is over, make sure the off-site training facility is ready to go whenever they want it starting this afternoon. I have a feeling they're going to want to practice some things in open space."

"Very good, Ms. Potts," he replied.

When Steph punched the glass to get out, we all winced as nothing happened except pain crossed her face. She tried again with her dagger, and Jane was yelling at her to send electricity through it, but clearly Steph couldn't hear her.

"JARVIS?" Darcy said.

I was pretty sure that if he could have sighed, JARVIS would have before saying, "I am unable to relay your suggestion to, or communicate in any way with, The Hunter at this time."

Thankfully the support jet and a rope got Steph back into the battle, and with no new spiders coming out, it wasn't all that much longer before the team had everything wrapped up. At that point, everyone seemed to relax, and Pepper replaced my finished Irish coffee with one of the mimosas and we all raised our glasses to the TV.

"When I am doing my show hungover tonight, Pepper, I am so blaming you."

The women snickered, and we watched the highlight reel that was playing on the news while offering our own color commentary now that we knew everyone was okay. In the corner of the screen, the station had a live video of Steve and Steph riding back to the tower, so we were all looking at the elevators eagerly when they walked in. Just from the way they moved, you could see that they were still more than a little on edge and filled with adrenaline as they exited, sweeping the room with their gazes. Steph was also relentlessly shivering and rubbing and scratching at her body. Upon seeing it was just the group of us women, they relaxed a little, and Steph fixed her gaze with mine, pointed at me, and said, "off the record."

I nodded eagerly in agreement, and gaped as she walked over to the bar, pulled a bottle of high-proof vodka out of the freezer section, grabbed a highball glass, filled it with vodka and chugged it. She looked over at the TV, showing one of the big spiders up close, and shook her head, scratching herself all over. Then she shook her head, muttered, "not good enough, I'm taking a shower."

Steve watched in amusement as she took the bottle of vodka with her and, drinking from it with one hand while scratching at herself with the other, quickly made her way upstairs. When she was out of sight, he held his finger up, waiting patiently for something apparently only he could hear. With a nod, he doubled over in laughter, holding onto his stomach.

Natasha's POV

We walked into the common room floor just in time to see Pepper smack a laughing Steve upside the head, which I hadn't seen her do before. One of other guys, sure, but I couldn't remember Steve ever earning her ire. Tony immediately called out, "not that I don't support it, but what'd Cap do to deserve that?"

Steve hadn't stopped laughing yet, and all the women were just glaring at him, looking sideways at each other, Hill and I shrugged our shoulders and added our glares to the mix. Solidarity. If Pepper smacked him, he deserved it.

"Where's Steph?" Bucky finally asked.

Tony was, of course, investigating the bar and said, "Where's the bottle of Spirytus Delikatesowy?"

Darcy's own mouth twitched as she said, "the answer to your questions are the same- in the shower. At least, she didn't look like she was giving up the bottle of vodka anytime soon, and she was itching like crazy, so I'm pretty sure she's in the shower with the vodka." Everyone looked mildly surprised, so Darcy elaborated, "apparently she REALLY doesn't like spiders."

Tony's eyebrow raised and he said, "uh, Cap. That stuff is almost 100% alcohol. It's more than twice as strong as what we had on Jackie over there's show the other night, and Steph did say she was a little tingly after that. I had it around to see if I could get you drunk on it sometime. Steph's smaller, less muscular than you, and while we know she has some sort of metabolic enhancement, her serum wasn't the same as yours and we haven't really tested her drinking limits yet… basically you may want to go make sure…"

He trailed off as Steve immediately stopped laughing and spun on his heel, dashing upstairs.

"How much did she drink?" Clint asked.

"Like it was water," Jackie said dryly. "Probably had at least half the bottle down before he got up there."

At that, Tony started fiddling around at the bar, "so what you're saying is she and all you ladies have a head start, and we all need to catch up?"

Hill started to protest and then just sighed when she saw the other four ladies nodding their heads enthusiastically. She reached over and grabbed Pepper's empty mimosa glass, poured herself some out of the pitcher and downed it saying, "debrief tomorrow?"

Huh, it seemed there really was a first for everything. Clint and I looked at each other and high fived while everyone else cheered. Tony started passing around drinks, and after ten minutes, Sif stood up saying she had something perfect for the occasion and went upstairs. A few minutes later, Sif was walking out of the elevator having changed and showered, carrying a barrel with a tap in it. Bucky got up and helped her settle it on the bar. We all quickly dispersed and returned clean, sans weapons, and wearing our comfies. Just as we were settling down and Sif was getting ready to open up her barrel of who knows what, Steph and Steve came back down the stairs.

Steph was leading the way dressed in a bright red racerback pajama shirt that said "Captain America" over a cartoon image of Steve's shield, and her shorts were white with tiny shields all over them. More surprising was Steve's white shirt that had a beautifully sketched picture of Steph's daggers sketched on the front of it that he was wearing with dark grey sweats.

"How many times have I told you? Please don't buy the knock-off stuff. You can have as much free merchandise as you want, just wear the official stuff! And there aren't any Hunter, Soldier, or Falcon merchandise yet- they'll come out by Black Friday for holiday shopping, but they aren't out yet, so that has to be knock-off!" Tony said with exasperation.

"I made it," Steve replied casually, "told her if she was going to wear my shield around because she thought it was funny then I was going to wear something representing her. I'll take the lot of it when the official merchandise comes out though, thanks for the offer."

Steph walked over to the bar and plunked the empty bottle of vodka down on the counter and, although both she and Steve looked more relaxed, I assumed that was the direct result of post-mission shower sex, she just said to Tony, "not good enough. Please tell me you have something stronger. There were SO MANY spiders."

"Uhhhhh, that was the best stuff I had. Do you really feel nothing?"

Steph shrugged, "a little, but it isn't enough. I still feel them crawling all over me."

I tilted my head to the side, "they were too big to crawl all over you."

She shuddered visibly and replied, "not the ones in that cage."

My lips twitched, but I couldn't laugh after giving Steve a hard time for doing so before, "so those are the ones you're freaked out about, not the ones that destroyed Steve's poor bike."

Steph groaned and put her head in her hands, "I'd managed to forget about the bike, and no. I feel the little ones all over me, but the big ones were bad too. They're all bad. Spiders bad."

Sif clapped her hands as she poured out the first mugful of whatever brew she had brought down. With a big smile she handed the first drink to Steph and said, "aren't the battles where we conquer our fears the most satisfying?"

"I can think of much more fun ways to be satisfied," Steph argued. She took a big sip of her drink, then smiled and took another. Nodding enthusiastically she said, "yes, this will work. What is this?"

"Asgardian mead," Thor said, "it is much stronger than any Midgardian brew I've come across, so I'd urge those who have not been enhanced to use caution while enjoying it."

Most of the humans took a small glass or begged off, but unable to resist, I took a mugful for myself and nursed it. Before long, we were sitting around laughing talking about the time we'd been on Jackie's show and the game of Never Have I Ever she'd had us play. When Bucky, Bruce, Steve, Thor, and Sif all said they'd never played before that day, Steph, Darcy, and Jackie all looked disgusted.

So then Steph, Darcy, and Jackie started trading off coming up with the names of drinking games, asking if we'd ever played them before. They had a brief conference among themselves and decided the one that they could easily find the materials for was Flip Cup. Fifteen minutes later, JARVIS had a couple of Tony's robots deliver a big bag of red SOLO cups and several folding tables. Supers and Asgardians were filling their cups with the Asgardian ale and the rest of us with beer. Jane took turns pairing off with Darcy, Jane, or Pepper to decrease all of their alcohol consumption.

We were all on our second round and loudly debating how to set up a tournament to figure out who was best when JARVIS pinged, turned down the party music, and we all turned to the elevators as one. Ranger, Tank, Hector, Hal, and Woody all walked out with blank faces on, though when Woody caught sight of Jackie he slipped for a fraction of a second and I could see his amusement. Silently, Ranger raised one eyebrow, and Pepper blurted out, "Steph started it!" then smacked a hand over her own mouth.

Ranger turned his eyebrow on Steph and she just glared at him and said, "so. many. spiders."

At that, Ranger barked out a laugh before shaking his head and taking in the scene again, "so… debrief tomorrow?" after a pause he said, "you guys realize it is like noon on a Monday, right?"

Clint stared at him defiantly and said, "so?"

That got Darcy snickering and before long we were all laughing. Woody was talking into his phone, and once he hung up, the entire group gave up and joined us in our laughter with Woody finally saying, "pizza will be up soon, now, I'm back off shift but only for a couple hours. So I can't join in, but it sounded like you need a judge and scorekeeper?"


A/N: Posted another story that you should check out. It's a series of stand alone one shots that are set in a soulmate AUs. So it's Steph finding her soulmate or soulmates (romantic and/or platonic) amongst the Avengers (and other Marvel Cinematic Universe characters). It is called "Plum Soulmates". I'm having fun with it, and I hope you read and enjoy!