Lunch time found the tower kitchen very crowded. Clint had semi-mockingly donned a checkered apron and made a massive amount of chicken stir fry, and a smaller amount of tofu, the smell of which had drawn in the rest of the residents.

"You know," Tony said, "I do have an actual dining room. Two, in fact."

"Who needs dining rooms when you have a kitchen island?" Clint scoffed as he settled himself in a seat with a loaded plate. He was still wearing the apron.

"Who needs a dining room when you have a floor?" Steve challenged.

Bucky snickered around a wad of rice noodle. Bruce gestured with his chopsticks without looking up from the stack of files he was reading. "The Captain makes a good point."

"Why would you ever need two dining rooms anyway?" Fitz had given up on chopsticks and was using a fork despite Jemma's best efforts at teaching him. Most of the rest of the table had opted for forks in the first place.

"Oh I'm sure Stark has his reasons." Natasha examined a dark spot on a carrot before eating it.

"Tony always has reasons," Pepper said, just coming in. "Even if he doesn't, he makes a few up on the spot." She shrugged out of her suit jacket, draped it over the unclaimed stool between Coulson and Steve, and deftly swept Bruce's folders closed and onto the floor.

"Hey!"

"I am establishing and enforcing a 'no file folders at meals' rule." Pepper stalked over to fix herself a plate.

Tony pulled a bowl of fruit toward himself. "Shareholders' meeting go that well, huh?"

"Do not speak." She sat and wolfed down some stir fry. "This is really good. Who made this?"

Clint raised his hand quietly.

"Explains the apron." Pepper propped an elbow on the counter and rubbed her temple. "I am so glad I have theatre tickets for tomorrow. I need the night off. No, I need about a month off, but I'll take what I can get."

Tony passed her a glass bottle of cream soda. "If that's gonna be your night off are we uninvited?"

"No." She took a swig from the bottle and set it down with a sigh. "You're not uninvited. Though I only remember actually inviting Barnes." She raised her eyebrows at Tony.

"I figured my invitation was implied." Tony grinned.

She rolled her eyes.

"What do you have tickets for?" Bucky asked curiously.

"Well, anything." Pepper shrugged. "They're ticket vouchers, actually. I only have four though."

"I can buy tickets for any extras who want to go." Tony tossed a grape into his mouth. "I can afford front row seats for all of us. I mean, fourth row is usually better, that's really where the lighting designer designs for, but you get the point."

"It's so easy to forget that you're cultured," Natasha said dryly.

Tony scoffed. Jemma preempted his comeback. "I think it would be nice for us all to go. What's playing right now? Any good musicals?"

"The Fifty Shades of Grey musical is running off Broadway," Tony provided.

"Can we not?" Clint looked like he might be sick.

"What?" Tony smirked. "Scared your G-man will get ideas?"

"No. I just have a lot against that entire franchise."

"Barton reads fanfiction. And writes it, not that he'll let anyone read his shit." Natasha waved her fork. "I'm pretty sure it offends his sensibilities that badly written Twilight smut got published."

"Actually," Clint stole a bite off her plate, "I have definite opinions about consent that both Fifty Shades and Twilight are at odds with."

Coulson frowned. "Did you read Twilight?"

"Maybe."

"Besides, if Phil needs any ideas," Natasha smirked devilishly, "I have a whole flashdrive of gay erotica that I'd be more than happy to share."

Blushing furiously and trying to act like he wasn't, Fitz asked, "Why do you have a flashdrive of gay erotica?"

"Mostly to tease Clint with. The flashdrive of lady love fiction is for me."

"Weren't we making plans for going to the theatre?" Steve asked pointedly.

"Yes, we were." Bruce sounded relieved someone had redirected the conversation. He flicked through a webpage on his ever-present tablet which had been spared his folders' express trip to the floor. "Book of Mormon is running. Lion King is still running. Mama Mia and Phantom of the Opera are both back. Wicked, though unfortunately not with Idina Menzel, she's in something else right now. Aladdin, Kinky Boots, Cabaret, Les Mis, Chicago, Jersey Boys, Avenue Q, Into the Woods, and something called Naked Boys Singing."

"Well." Steve reached for his glass. "That is quite the lineup."

Natasha's brow furrowed. "What about Walk the Line?"

"That Johnny Cash musical?" Bruce scrolled back up through the page. "Sold out."

Tony leaned forward. "Wouldn't peg you as a Johnny Cash fan, Natasha."

"'I keep a close watch on this heart of mine,'" Natasha quoted lyrically, "'I keep my eyes wide open all the time.' Johnny Cash feels me on a deep, spiritual level."

"I think I need to know that song," Bucky said. Natasha tossed him an iPod and headphones from her pocket. Jemma helped him find the right track as the discussion of show choices continued.

"I've always liked Les Mis," Pepper offered.

"I read that book." Steve stabbed a cube of chicken with his fork. "It's depressing."

"You actually read that brick?" Tony balked. "It's like a billion pages long."

"I was laid up with pneumonia." Steve shrugged. "I had time."

"Huh." Tony shook his head and ate more grapes.

"So I guess that's a 'no' on Les Mis." Pepper sighed. "And I'm going to say that Cabaret being set in Nazi Germany is grounds for throwing it out."

Bucky passed Natasha's iPod back. "I'd like to avoid Nazis if at all possible."

Steve nodded and cringed slightly. "Bad times."

"Hey, on the bright side they were times that taught you how to steal a car." Natasha tucked her iPod away and munched a carrot. "Very useful skill."

Bucky looked at Steve. "When did you steal a car?"

"You were there. Near Strasbourg."

"I mean since then." Bucky nodded toward the Russian. "That she'd know about."

"Oh. Uh. March." Steve suddenly became very interested in his food. "On the run from Hydra-controlled S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Oh." Bucky became equally interested in his own food.

Clint cleared his throat. "How about Avenue Q, Avenue Q is fun."

"What's it about?" Steve asked.

"It's basically Sesame Street on drugs." Tony sounded pleased.

"I know what Sesame Street is," Steve said slowly, "but I've never watched it."

Clint gaped at him. "Why not?"

"Because I'm a grown man."

"That is not an excuse." Clint reached to pull open a junk drawer and grab a pen. "Natasha, why do you have taser chips in the junk drawer? Oh never mind. Steve, gimme that damn notebook of yours, the one you put the stuff you need to catch up on in."

"I don't have it on me."

"Bullshit you don't."

Steve set the contents of his jeans pockets on the counter—a single wrapped cookie, a pencil, an eraser, some change, store brand chapstick, and what looked like a motorcycle key—then stood and turned his pockets out, giving Clint a challenging look.

Clint huffed. "You're adding it later."

Jemma made a face as Steve swept his effects back into his pockets with a roll of his eyes. "Why are you carrying around a cookie?"

"Why would you not want to carry around a cookie?" he asked with a grin as he sat back down.

Pepper laughed and nearly snorted her drink. "Musicals, can we decide so Tony can buy tickets?"

"Wicked's good." Fitz shrugged. "Saw it on West End last time I was in London. It's based onThe Wizard of Oz."

Bucky perked up. "Yeah?"

"Story of the Wicked Witch of the West." Natasha smiled. "You like The Wizard of Oz?"

"Yeah." Bucky looked at Steve. "We saw it when it came out. I had boxing winnings and we actually bothered to pay extra to go to a first run theatre."

"Because you had asked Milli O'Hara to go with you and I was supposed to take her little sister but they both backed out last minute." Steve laughed.

"So we scalped their tickets at the door and spent the money on pie at dinner." Bucky grinned broadly and chuckled.

"Hey, pie is good." Tony pulled out his phone. "We're all going, yeah? So that's ten people, Pep's got four tickets covered, I need to get six?"

"Seven, if everyone here wants to go," Pepper said. "Maria knows about the vouchers, she'd like to go. She needs a night off as much as I do, possibly more, depending on what's happening downstairs right now."

"Seven it is."

#

After lunch, Steve and Bucky returned to Steve's room where they spent the afternoon hard at work, collaborating on Bucky's Hydra diagrams and cartography project. Toward evening, their focus and quiet were disrupted when Tony burst dramatically through the door laden with garment bags and other shopping spree refuse. "Happy unbirthday, I bought you suits. At least I'm pretty sure it's neither of your birthdays. I know it's not Steve's, 'cause that's the goddamn Fourth of July because of course it is. Barnes is it your birthday?"

"Uh, no." Bucky glanced at Steve.

"Tony, you really didn't have to—"

"Yes I did." Tony strode past them to hang up the garment bags. "The only clothes Sergeant Hook actually owns are a beat up pair of cargo shorts, boots, and a vest-harness-thing." He paused. "Okay, if Barnes is Hook, you are definitely Peter Pan, Cap. You even have the whole not aging thing going. Anyway, all you've got by way of formal wear is your dress blues and you are not wearing those to the theatre."

"There is nothing wrong with wearing a dress uniform to—"

"No." Tony shook his head, dropped one of the bags he was carrying, and pulled a shoebox out of it. "Got you both shoes. Pulled all your sizing stuff from S.H.I.E.L.D. gear issue records, and damn, Cap, you have positively dainty feet for a guy your size. Never noticed that, I don't look at your feet much. Barnes, couldn't find sizing for you so Jarv scanned you, hope you don't mind. Catch." He tossed Bucky a tissue-paper wrapped package.

Bucky caught it deftly and unfolded the paper. Inside were a pair of soft, dark red gloves.

"We have expensive seats, you've got fancy duds, it's still pretty cool at night, no one will question a nice pair of gloves. You can both borrow watches, cufflinks, and ties from me, I have plenty to go around." Tony swept out of the room as suddenly as he had come in, leaving a post-storm kind of quiet behind him.

Bucky experimentally pulled one glove onto his left hand. "If I'm Hook, and you're Peter, does that make Peggy Tinkerbell?"

Steve couldn't help but laugh. He shook his head. "I'm not sure how she'd feel about that, but yeah, I think it does."

#

"You shouldn't have told them you do hair," Coulson chuckled the next afternoon, watching Clint play stylist to Pepper, Natasha, Maria, and Jemma in the makeshift salon that was the kitchen.

"You know what?" Clint said through a mouthful of bobby pins. "Fuck you."

The women all laughed. Maria shrugged unapologetically. "You volunteered."

"I volunteered to help Pepper." Clint finished pinning up one of Natasha's titian curls. "Okay, I'm done. If any on the four of you want anything else done, do it yourselves or help each other. While I'm in the mindset, I'm gonna go make sure Barnes doesn't look like a hobo, and then I'm getting dressed. Phil are you dressed? I can't tell because suit."

Coulson shrugged. "I might change ties."

Maria shot him a look. "Phil."

"Or I guess I could put on a better suit."

"Why don't you do that?" Pepper said with a smile, her hair swept up in a graceful cascade of braids and curls.

"Everyone else is spiffing up," Natasha quipped.

Clint shoved a hairbrush through his belt loop, grabbed a hair tie and a couple pins, then turned to slip from the room, pausing in the doorway to look back at Phil. "Sisters?" he signed, blocking the women's view of his hands with his body.

"Yes," Coulson laughed, prompting a barrage of questions as Clint fled, laughing, down the hall.

He got to Steve's room, knocked, and let himself in without waiting for an answer. "Actually, I don't care if you're naked. Wow, did Tony seriously deck you out in red, white, and blue?"

"Yes," Steve said, fiddling with his scarlet tie, "he did. Even offered me a flag lapel pin."

Clint took a moment to take in the crisp white shirt, navy herringbone suit pants, and the matching jacket draped over a chair. "Wow." He shook his head then turned to the other man in the room. "Barnes, I'm fixing your hair."

"Uh, alright." Bucky looked up from fighting with the buttons of his dark red buttondown as Clint advanced on him with a hairbrush.

"There's a fine line between rock star and bum when it comes to men with long hair, and you're skirting it," Clint explained, pulling the sergeant's hair back into a neat ponytail. "It helps that you shaved."

#

"Happy's pulling the limo around," Tony said as he passed out sunglasses. "Greek for dinner."

Bucky turned the glasses over in his hands. "Tony, it's night."

"Doesn't matter when you're rich." Tony put his own shades on with a grin then snatched a trilby from the table behind him and plopped it on Barnes's head. "There, you look like, I dunno, the swanky head of some grassroots upstart company. It's perfect."

Natasha pulled up the hood of her lace capelet. "And I look like Red Riding Hood meets Lady Marmalade."

"I think you look fantastic," Clint said, pulling on a pair of opera gloves.

"I never said anything to the contrary." Natasha smirked.

Coulson rolled his eyes, then put on his own hat and sunglasses. "How do I look?"

Clint gave him a once over. "Like Mafia."

"No, he doesn't." Natasha shook her head.

"Yes, he does."

"No, he doesn't."

"He looks like movie Mafia," Steve said firmly, halting the bickering. He put on the red fedora Tony had furnished him with. "I, meanwhile, feel ridiculous."

"You shouldn't," Jemma said. "I love the hat. The hat works surprisingly well."

Fitz nodded his agreement from under the brim of his flatcap.

Pepper walked up, tucking her phone into her purse. "Are we ready to duck the paparazzi without looking like we're trying to duck the paparazzi?"

"We're missing Bruce," Tony said.

"No you're not!" Bruce called, coming down the hall, buttoning his vest.

Coulson frowned at him. "Are you wearing a three piece suit without the jacket?"

"I never even bought the jacket." Bruce shrugged and tugged at the cuff of his purple shirt.

"So we've got Bruce." Clint looked around. "Where's Maria?"

"Oh, she's not riding with us," Pepper said. "She's bringing someone else. I forgot, only Natasha was there when I told Tony we needed a twelfth ticket."

Before anyone could inquire, Tony's phone chirped. "And that, my dears, is our ride."

#

"Ah, Ms. Potts," the maitre d' said smoothly. "Right this way, we have you in your usual private room. Two of your guests arrived a few minutes ago. Though I must admit, Mr. Stark, we weren't expecting you tonight."

"Nor were you supposed to be." Tony grinned.

"She has a usual private room?" Steve asked quietly of no one in particular.

Natasha, her arm looped through his as they made their way to their table, shrugged. "For working dinners, I'd guess."

Tony clapped the maitre d' on the shoulder. "One thing."

"Yes, sir?"

"If anyone asks, this is a wedding party."

"Oh?" The maitre d' did an admirable job of not sounding confused. "And who might the happy couple be?"

Natasha gave a very fake cough and looked pointedly at Coulson.

"We're not—" He stopped, having noticed Clint scowling at him. "Yet. We're not yet."

"That was a horrible save, bro." Tony bit back a smirk.

Clint relinquished Phil's arm and attached himself to Jemma.

"Them, Miss?" the maitre d' asked rather playfully. "I'd thought they were already married."

"Common law." Natasha shrugged.

The maitre d' made a sound of understanding.

A pocket door separated the private room from the rest of the restaurant. The lively group of ten spilled haphazardly through the doorway and into the well-appointed dining room. Inside, facing the doorway, Maria stood, quietly conversing with a slender brunet whose back was to the group.

Tony said, "I didn't know Maria—"

With a firm and sudden grip on his arm, Pepper stopped Tony's flow of words.

Beside Pepper, Bruce had gone very still. His face went white. "Stark," he choked out. "What have you done?"