PEPPER POTTS: MISSION ON. I'LL BUY YOU AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE.

STEVE ROGERS: THANKS, PEP. APPRECIATE IT.

PEPPER POTTS: GOOD LUCK.

"All right, team, let's get going!" Steve tucked his phone away and waved for the team to follow him.

They half-walked, half-jogged down the stairs towards the kitchen. Bruce was already pulling an apron over his head. Thor was wielding a spatula, frowning at how light it felt. Clint and Natasha trailed behind the others; Natasha was trying to undo the clasp of Clint's quiver, which for some reason had collected a wad of his T-shirt and was refusing to come loose.

"Right then," Steve said excitedly, rubbing his hands together as he watched the rest of them spread around the kitchen counter. "Let's get started."

There was half a minute of awkward silence. Natasha, who had finally undone the quiver clasp, tossed the quiver away triumphantly, only to find everyone looking at her expectantly. She frowned, confused.

"Why're you all looking at me?"

Thor gazed at the others, then back at Natasha. "I do believe we are looking to you for guidance."

Natasha's eyebrows shot up. "So because I'm a girl, I'm supposed to know how to bake a cake?" she began testily. "Might I remind you that -"

"You said you'd find the recipe," Clint interrupted in a low voice. Everyone else nodded in agreement.

Natasha sighed in exasperation. "No, you idiots. I asked JARVIS to find a recipe. JARVIS?"

A mechanical voice blasted out from the speakers that were built into the kitchen ceiling. "You are correct, Miss Romanoff. You must begin by combining the wet and dry ingredients separately."

Natasha, who was sporting an 'I-told-you-so' expression on her face, turned to Steve. "Okay, Cap, you call it."

Steve tied his stars-and-stripes apron around his waist and began issuing his orders. "Right then. Romanoff and Barton - you two sort out the dry ingredients. Thor, Banner and I will mix up the wet ingredients. Get it done and regroup here - understood?"

Clint, Banner and Thor nodded seriously. Natasha merely responded with an amused smile.

"Right then," Steve said. "Avengers - Assemble!"

Rolling her eyes, Natasha grabbed a mixing bowl and shoved it into Clint's hands. "JARVIS, let's have the dry ingredients up here," she said.

"As you wish, Miss Romanoff." A list of dry ingredients appeared on the hologram screen at one end of the kitchen bench. Clint and Natasha scrutinised it carefully.

"400 grams of flour," Clint read aloud. "2 tablespoons of cocoa powder. 1 teaspoon of baking powder. Half a teaspoon of salt."

Natasha left Clint with the recipe and went looking for measuring spoons and a scale. When she came back, a slightly brown mix of powders had been tossed in the bowl, and Clint was nowhere to be seen. What on Earth...?

Natasha eventually found Clint polishing his bowstring on a sofa in the lounge. "Oh for goodness sake, Hawkeye! We're supposed to be baking Tony's birthday cake!" She snatched the bow out of his hands.

"Aww, come on, Nat - it's a piece of cake." He smirked, but she did not smile at his pun. "I'm just making myself useful while we wait for the Cap and the others to finish."

Natasha had her hands on her hips and was glaring down at him dangerously. "And how did you measure the ingredients?"

Clint was finding it a little daunting to have the Black Widow glowering over him, so he stood up. He was taller than her, so she wasn't able to keep looking down at him. "I just guessed."

"You just guessed." Natasha repeated with a sigh. "Clint, this isn't cooking, it's baking. We have to measure the ingredients accurately if we want the cake to work. Besides, aren't you supposed to be all about precision, Mr Arrow-guy?"

A frown made its way across Clint's forehead as he considered this. "Really? Baking isn't the same as cooking?"

Natasha sighed again and grabbed his arm, dragging him back towards the kitchen. "Come on, wash your hands again, we'll start from scratch."

Meanwhile, Steve's wet-ingredients crew were struggling with JARVIS' instructions. Their mixing bowl currently contained 2 cups of sugar, one of the two eggs that the recipe called for, and far too much red food colouring.

"No, no, you're supposed to cream together the butter and sugar first," Bruce was saying, reading from the recipe. "And it's two and half tablespoons of food colouring, not two and a half cups."

Thor chose this moment to crack the second egg into the bowl, shell and all. Steve hurriedly began scooping out the eggshell with a spoon.

"Guys!" Bruce cried. The other two stopped and looked at him. He sighed. "Looking, baking is a science. You have to do things precisely, in the correct order. Look, let's just start from scratch. Thor - you measure out the butter and sugar and cream them together."

Bruce passed a whisk and a clean bowl to Thor, who busied himself with Bruce's instructions, all the while muttering. "On Asgard the cakes merely appear at the table - none of this measuring nonsense!"

"What about me, Doc?" Steve asked, suddenly relieved that Bruce seemed to know what was going on.

Bruce handed over another bowl. "You crack the eggs, Cap. Probably safer that way. Tony wouldn't want eggshell in his cake."

As Steve carefully cracked two eggs into his bowl, Bruce went to check on Thor. Thor's incredible wrist muscles had completely whisked the butter and sugar into a light, fluffy mixture.

"Great job, Thor!" Bruce said genuinely, and Thor's face lit up into a smile. "You take a break now - you've earned it."

Thor happily went to take a seat, casually watching Natasha and Clint leaning over the scales at the other end of the bench, there foreheads nearly touching as they stared at the digital numbers.

"Eggs?"

Steve passed the eggs to Bruce, who mixed them into the butter-sugar mixture. He then carefully added in measured amounts of oil, vinegar, vanilla and buttermilk, finally producing a nice, cohesive mix.

At the other end of the bench, Natasha and Clint had finally finished their second attempt at the dry ingredients mixture. Clint proudly laid down the bowl on the bench.

"Awesome, great work," Steve said happily. "Okay JARVIS, what now?"

"Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients."

Bruce tossed the whisk into the sink and began searching in the drawers for a mixing spatula. He suddenly stopped and looked up at the others, who were watching expectantly.

"What is it?" Steve asked.

"I just remembered - Thor, where'd you put the spatula?"

"Spatula? Oh, the cooking implement. Its balance was horrible and did not throw well. I had it removed from the facility." Thor shrugged indifferently.

"You threw it out?!" Natasha threw her hands in the air in a gesture of 'what now?'

Bruce sighed and opened the drawers again. "I'll just improvise. Someone can take care of the cake pan while I'm trying to find something suitable."

Bruce eventually emerged with a wooden spoon, only to find that someone - probably Thor - had squashed the cake pan into what resembled a mobius strip. Natasha was impatiently trying to explain that 'take care of' doesn't always mean destroy, while Clint laughed uncontrollably in the corner. Steve was carefully trying to bend the cake pan back into shape.

Bruce surveyed the scene for a moment, then shrugged and combined the dry and wet ingredients together. By the time he was done, the cake pan was approximately round again, and Natasha had laid down baking paper at the bottom and greased the sides with butter.

"Thank god," Bruce muttered, as he poured the batter into the pan. "Let's get this in the oven."

JARVIS had preheated the oven for them, so Bruce simply grabbed an oven mitt and popped the cake inside.

"Excellent work. JARVIS, will you time that?" Steve asked.

"Yes, Master Rogers. Might I suggest that you move onto the frosting now."

Steve paled at this, but Bruce quickly took the reins. "Why don't you take Thor and Clint and see how Pepper is doing. You know, a bit or recon work. Nat and I will finish up the frosting."

Steve seized this idea eagerly. "Yes, good idea. We'll be able to see them from the top of the tower."

Clint, Thor and Steve headed up the stairs at a jog, arriving at a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows of the observation deck. They could just make out two figures on a picnic rug on the lush green grass. One had a cascade of blonde hair. The other was lying on his back, gazing dreamily into her eyes.

Thor dragged three lounge chairs towards the windows, and Steve nodded approvingly. "Might as well be comfortable for the stakeout."