Hello, thanks to everybody who reviewed, favorited or followed! It really motivates me. Hope you like this chapter!

xxx

Steve woke up the next morning to the aroma of freshly made pancakes. At least, that's what he thought the smell was. There was also a distinct smell of something burning…

He rubbed his tired eyes and sat up, wondering if he should be alarmed. It was odd that someone other than himself had tried to make breakfast, because it was kind of an unspoken rule that Steve was the designated cook of the Avengers.

Steve glanced at his clock and realized he had woken up a little later than he normally did, probably because of how long it took him to actually fall asleep. He rolled out of bed and changed into more suitable clothing before walking towards the kitchen.

When he got there, he saw Clint hurriedly dumping water on the flaming remains of what used to be pancakes, luckily stopping the small fire from spreading. Natasha and Bruce were sitting on bar stools watching him, looking uninterested and bored.

"Clint, what are you doing?" Steve asked warily, sighing.

Barton spun around to face him after quickly dumping the charred carcasses of the pancakes into the trash, slamming the lid shut a little too loudly.

"Mornin' Steve, I was just making breakfast." Clint said casually, as if he made breakfast all the time and it wasn't totally out of his character.

Steve raised an eyebrow and began walking towards Clint. "Here, let me help," he said, thinking the other man could use some assistance.

"No!" Clint quickly jumped in front of him, effectively cutting him off. "Er, I mean, I already made some that didn't burn and they will be great so you can just go sit your spangly self over at the kitchen table and wait for the food to be ready."

Clint's rushed words started to blend together, and Steve cautiously obliged, wondering what was actually going on. Natasha and Bruce joined him at the table, and they all sat in comfortable silence as they waited for the food to be served.

"We can't eat until everyone's here," Clint said, looking pointedly at Steve before smiling sweetly. "Maybe you can go wake up Tony while Bruce gets Thor." He put an emphasis on Tony's name, and smirked at the tinge of pink rising onto Steve's face.

"No way. He can wake up when he wants to," Steve replied, keeping his voice steady and emotionless, not wanting to give Barton the satisfaction of watching him struggle.

Clint was about to respond when, speak of the devil, Tony himself groggily shuffled into the room. He looked completely out of it, and Steve assumed he had stayed up too late working again.

Clint grinned at the new arrival. "Well, hi Tony," he said perkily, barely able to withhold the sound of satisfaction from leaking into his voice.

Tony looked up at Clint grouchily and narrowed his eyes. "Why are you so cheerful?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." For a spy and assassin, Clint was not very good at lying, and Steve did not miss the flicker of a mischievous grin on his face.

Steve didn't like the look of that. Tony, however, apparently decided that Clint's shenanigans were not worth his time, so he went and got some coffee before sitting down next to Steve.

Oh no. Bad idea. Even Black Widow had the slightest smirk on her face as Steve shifted in his seat, feeling awkward. Tony didn't notice how the atmosphere around Cap changed when he came over, but everyone else did.

Steve stared down at his hands on the table, aware of Tony mindlessly stirring his coffee beside him, probably looking adorable in his just awoken state.

Oops. Steve was trying to not think about Tony. He looked around the room, feigning interest in the occasional wall or the way the ceiling fan was spinning. He looked outside and watched birds hopping around and trees swaying in the wind, appreciating that at least through all of the 70 years he had been in the ice, nature was still nature.

He absently followed a trail of sunlight as it streamed in through the window, where it happened to land right on Tony, putting highlights in his dark hair and casting shadows on his jaw line. Tony looked more alert now with his coffee, and Steve stared at a small drop that was on the corner of his mouth, suddenly having an overwhelming urge to—

Oh. Dang it, Rogers.

Steve quickly looked away from the genius, and noticed that Bruce had finally arrived with Thor. By the looks of it, Thor hadn't come very enthusiastically, usually being one who liked to sleep in later.

"Now that everyone's here, we can finally have breakfast." Clint said, sounding a little more eager than the situation called for. Thor perked up at the mention of food, and came to the table, this time dragging Bruce along instead of the other way around.

Clint had a plate in his hands as he walked over to where the rest of the Avengers were sitting, resting his hand on top of the domed lid ominously. He waited until he had everyone's attention before smiling directly as Steve, and Cap swore he saw a glint in his eyes.

"Voila!" Clint announced as he lifted the lid to reveal a plate of steaming, fresh… heart shaped pancakes.

Steve had to resist the urge to punch him right in his very smug face.

The rest of the Avengers snickered, and Thor laughed loudly before clasping Steve firmly on the shoulder. Steve quickly shoved his hand off before Tony could notice.

Tony looked at Clint and the pancakes incredulously, and even more so when Clint started passing out the pancakes around the table.

Barton was purposely giving the most obvious and largest heart shaped ones to Steve and Tony, while some of the more deformed lumps went to the rest of the Avengers.

Tony poked at his stack of pancakes suspiciously. "Why are they heart shaped? Legolas, do you have something to tell us?" He asked, smirking at Clint.

Clint laughed and started to reply, "Well since you're asking…" Steve felt his eyes widen in distress, no way, they promised not to tell, they promised they promised they promised they—

"There is absolutely no reason at all that I decided to make heart shaped pancakes this morning." Tony gave Clint an annoyed and obvious disbelieving look, but Clint just snickered and turned back to his food to eat.

Steve felt a moment of relief before the irritated tension came back, and he started to cut his pancakes into dozens of tiny pieces, until they no longer resembled hearts at all.

Tony was still looking at his own pancakes skeptically. "The better question, is it safe to eat? You're an assassin, not a cook. Jarvis, what is the percentage probability that these pancakes are lethal?"

"There is a 30% chance that these pancakes could kill you, based on past records of Mr. Barton, sir."

Bruce's fork clattered onto his plate. "30%?" he said in alarm, looking at Clint untrustingly.

"Hey, those are only the times I deliberately had to poison someone by my cooking. No worries, I'm not actually that bad."

Regardless of Clint's statement, Tony still didn't look inclined to eat his pancakes. "Even if these monstrosities don't kill me, I doubt they'll taste good. And I'm sensing something suspicious going on here, and I don't like it."

Steve felt his heart beat a little faster, nervous that Tony was getting close to guessing, or that someone might tell him.

Clint pretended to look offended for a moment, until his expression transformed into a smirk. "I'm not up to anything, how could you say that?" he said in mock hurt. "I think you're just making excuses because you only like Steve's cooking."

Steve felt uncomfortable and unwillingly anxious for Tony's response, squeezing on his fork so hard that his knuckles were turning white.

"Steve isn't capable of plotting something against me, which is why I'm perfectly fine eating whatever he makes," Tony retorted, not noticing the rising blush on Steve's face or the restrained smiles of the rest of the Avengers. "Jarvis, what is the probability that Steve's cooking would kill me?"

"0%, sir, based on theoretical probability that he has never killed anyone in the past by his cooking."

Tony looked triumphant, and dumped his heart shaped pancakes on Clint's plate. "Here, you have them. I'll go write a eulogy for your funeral."

With that, Tony whisked out of the room, probably to go hole away in the lab and work on a project all day. Steve stood up as well, wishing he knew what to say in response to his fellow teammates' teasing looks in his direction.

Instead he walked out of the room, leaving the torn hearts of his breakfast sitting on the table and trying to ignore the bitter irony of it all.

xxx

For Steve, avoiding the other Avengers for the rest of the day was easy. He went to the gym and then stayed in his room, eating at irregular times as to not run into anyone in the kitchen.

On the other hand, keeping a certain billionaire out of his mind proved to be nearly impossible. He should've known sketching was a bad idea, and when his drawing turned out to be yet another one of Tony, he realized he was really craving some company from the genius.

It was that evening and he was bored, finally unable to help himself as he rose from his desk and out the door of his room. He snuck through the hallways, luckily avoiding encounters with the other Avengers, and made his way to Tony's workshop.

When he arrived, he lifted his hand and knocked tentatively on the door. There was no reply, and Steve knew that the loud music he heard from the inside was probably drowning him out.

He gingerly opened the door, walking in and taking a quick survey of the room while looking for Tony. The workshop was especially cluttered today, like it had been awhile since Tony had taken the time to clean up the numerous projects that littered the tables and floor.

"Tony?" Steve called out, reaching to turn the stereo down a bit so Tony could hear him better.

He heard a small sound and looked to the right to see Tony coming out from behind one of the Ironman suits, a wrench in his hand. He looked at Steve as he wiped his hands on his shirt, lifting one arm to mop at the sweat on his forehead.

"What's up, Cap?" Tony's tone was friendly enough, but Steve knew him well enough to sense the tiredness in his voice.

" I just came in to check on you. I noticed you didn't come down for lunch or dinner so… I just, um…" Steve felt his mind go blank on what to say, because the real reason he had come down was just so he could be around Tony, to watch him work or talk to him.

" I'm fine, Steve. You know, one of these days you're going to wake up with gray hair from worrying about everyone so much."

Not everyone. Just you. Steve's mind intrusively supplied.

"Well, I was a little bored too. Came down here to see if anything interesting was going on." Steve quickly added, which was mostly true, he supposed.

Tony shrugged. "Nothin' that entertaining. Just making some improvements to my suit, among other things."

"What are you adding?" Steve asked, needing a way to keep the conversation going. He walked closer to Tony and inspected the Ironman suit. There weren't any extremely noticeable differences, at least from what he could tell.

"Come here and see." Tony responded, grabbing Steve's wrist and pulling the blonde man so he was standing right beside him, shoulders almost touching. He let go of Cap, and then pointed to a new tiny gun that had been installed on one of the knuckles of the suit.

"I was thinking," Tony began, "that if I was faced against someone with metal armor like me or a robot of some sort, my normal blasters won't do much damage to them. So I made a specialized laser that can burn through any metal, even my suit or your precious shield if it stayed on it long enough."

Steve saw satisfaction in Tony's eyes as the genius sifted through notes he had written and double checked every aspect of the laser; he looked pleased with himself when all of the data matched up.

It wasn't the fake self assuredness and cockiness he wore around the press, but true, genuine pride at what he had made.

"That's great, Tony. Very cool." Steve said sincerely, noticing the small flecks of gold in Tony's brown irises for the first time. He didn't know how Tony could be so smart, and the inventions he made would never cease to impress Steve.

"Also, I stabilized some other weak points," Tony said, turning to face Steve and snapping him out of his reverie. "If you were the suit, these two places used to be vulnerable for some reason," he placed both his hands right above Steve's hips, looking Cap in the eye, not realizing how the intimate contact made Steve feel.

"I had to fix it so it kept the same mobility, but it is now ten times—

"Tony? The team wants you downstairs. Oh and by the way, have you seen—" Bruce's interruption was suddenly cut off, as he saw the compromising position Steve and Tony were in.

Faster than you could say "genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist", Steve had jumped away from Tony's touch and was standing to the side like a teenage boy who's mom caught him making out with his girlfriend.

Tony didn't even have the decency to look embarrassed, or maybe he didn't realize any reason he should. He was just demonstrating to a friend about his suit, after all.

"Um, well, uh there's, uh, Movie Night tonight if you guys, uh, want to join us," Bruce stammered. "Unless you're busy! Then, um, don't worry about it." He quickly added, making Steve turn red at what Bruce was probably thinking.

"I'm up for Movie Night." Tony said, unaware of the sexual tension in the air. "Come on, Capsicle, I can tell you about my suit later."

Steve followed Tony to the door, feeling his blush finally receding. He didn't look at Bruce though, feeling kind of violated for some reason. He kept feeling the ghost of Tony's hands on him, and he wished Bruce hadn't shown up to take that away from him.

Here he was, Captain freaking America, turning into a pile of love struck mush because of the unknowing touch of Tony Stark.

Some national icon he was.

xxx

I hope you guys are having as much fun reading this story as I am writing it! Please review, it keeps me going. And if you have any suggestions to make Steve feel awkward, please feel free to let me know.

Thanks!