"He would have let Tony kill him if I wasn't there," said Steve, walking across the common room carpet with the gingerness of a man in the middle of No Man's Land.

The Flame War franchise was the first point-and-click first-person shooter supported by virtual reality. Tony owned them all. Social Justice Warriors, Active Thread, Spoilers of War, Affront Lines, Incendiary Spammo, Tit Offensive, and Bidding War (none of them could beat the sniper level except for Bucky and Clint).

They were doing a Playthrough, so their fans could get to know them, although it was really so they could get to know each other without having to admit it.

"I would let Tony kill me now, but Steve is always around. It's funny that he's spent his whole life trying to stop an organization named after a tentacle monster when he is one."

Steve probably would have responded if he wasn't trying to KO an enemy combatant without letting go of the wand or Bucky.

Tony made an aborted movement at Bucky, which was not the same kind of aborted movement he made at Bucky two months ago. "I'm 12% sure Casper Friendly Ghost is joking, but now seems as good a time as any for one of those positive affirmation thingies. It wasn't your fault."

Tony had taken to therapy with the same obsession he did everything. Most things in the tower smelled like lavender now, including the common room, two of his suits, and DUM-E. He had five dream journals, which was probably excessive considering his insomnia.

Bucky shrugged, nearly dislodging Steve. "It was my hands."

"Be gay," said Tony. "No one here's going to call the cops. Although that would be a very funny call. Should we- Does anyone wanna'- No? Okay. Be as gay as you want. Be gayer."

"Well, don't- I mean-" Pepper's face was redder than her hair. "This is a PG-13 room."

"You make it sound like there is protocol for if non-PG-13 things happened in this room," said Steve.

"I'm married to Tony."

For some reason, Flame War didn't trigger anybody's PTSD even though Tony swore the beta versions had given him PTSD. No one believed that, but the first time he got KOed by the blaster level in Incendiary Spammo, Pepper made him take a break even though he had plenty of hearts left. Anyway, it was her turn.

It wasn't the action. Well, it was, but only because of the motion tracking. If it was off by half a millisecond, the result was simulator-sickness so bad that they had to wipe the headsets down with Clorox between levels.

Virtual reality was better for casual gaming. Puzzles. Vacation simulators. Zombie apocalypse survival games. At least zombies moved slow.

Tony also owned Vacation Simulator, but it just wasn't the same a real vacation. For one thing, the jet lag was worse. For another, everything smelled like Clorox.

"Till the end of the line," said Steve.

"Don't be gross," said Bucky.

"You guys do know that's a train metaphor, right?" asked Tony. "Isn't that a trigger or something?"

"It's something Bucky said to me once."

"What? You mean after Sarah's funeral, when you told me you could get by on your own, like you thought I was just keepin' you around for your ma's cookin'?"

"Yeah," said Steve.

"Yeah, well, lucky you. It was just cause I got used to your ugly mug. I swear, Stevie, it was like your nose always knew you'd be huge."

It turned out Tony and Bucky both preferred virtual reality to augmented reality, coffee to tea, dogs to humans, and mangos on our pizza, just to freak people out.

To be fair, Bucky had never tried augmented reality. When Stark Industries first released invisible phones, they sold out in under two hours, and after that, they couldn't be found anywhere for two weeks. One of Peter's classmates sold her kidney to buy one. Then she found out that wouldn't be enough and tried to sell the other one. The Avengers got there just in time.

By the time the invisible phones were back in stock, no one wanted them. They were only popular until people realized everyone else could see what they were looking at, which was usually porn. After that, they were only popular with jealous girlfriends.

"We've already had this conversation," said Tony.

"Technically, Bucky and I already had this conversation," said Steve.

"It was my hands."

Steve made a frustrated noise, which was kind of like all of his frustrated noises, which simultaneously reminded Bucky of the issue at hand and distracted him from it. "Yeah, but they weren't yours. They were taken from you and used, and it's just… like someone stole your computer, and you got it back, and now you've got a virus, and you're looking at your browsing history, and it's full of spam, but you didn't click okay. Okay, I get it, I shouldn't make technological analogies."

"That actually wasn't half bad."

"Will you please stop spying on us in our own living quarters, Tony?"

"No."

"There's something you should know," said Bucky. "You, not Tony."

"..."

"..."

"Just because he's not talking doesn't mean he's not there," said Steve. "Well, actually-"

"I'll take what I can get," said Bucky. "So I got a virus."

"Buck, I get it. It's a bad analogy."

"From websites about..." Bucky plowed ahead without looking where he was going. "Private things."

"Are we talking about- The serum would prevent you from-"

"Not an actual virus, Steve! Just maybe... I don't want to go to those kinds of websites anymore."

"Oh. Oh! I would never make you- ask you to- I love you for what's inside, Bucky."

"Don't you know how hard it is to get intel from someone with brain damage, Capsicle?"

"What?"

"Get it? Because there's Intel Inside!"

"Jesus, Tony. We're trying to have a conversation about… private things."

"You're both a hundred years old. You can say sex."

"How long has Natasha been here?"

"Long enough."

"Whatever," said Tony. "The pointy bit is… I get it. I know you wouldn't have killed Mom if it was really you. Dad, maybe, but Mom talked about you. How you took her to the Folly when Dad was working on the shield with Steve. How you bought her schnapps even though I guess they had already stopped doing anything for you. How you talked about the war, the future. Me. Hell, I might not have been born if you hadn't convinced Mom that Howard's genes weren't a total lost cause. I'm surprised you even knew about genes. They were discovered in what 1905? Weren't you like, twenty by then?"

Steve sighed. "You're a mathematical genius, Tony. Stop pretending you don't know how old we are."

Bucky made the same aborted movement that Tony just had, but then he got a look on his face. It was not unlike Steve's I'm-Going-To-Do-The-Right-Thing Face, which was not unlike Clint's I've-Had-Too-Much-Pizza Face. He detached Steve, stood up, and gave Tony a one-armed hug.

"I think Cap's ovaries just exploded," whispered Clint.

"I don't h- Even if I did, they wouldn't- What do you think the serum did to me?" whispered Steve.

When Tony got his voice back, he said, "Quit holding out on me."

So Bucky hugged him with the metal arm too, and he didn't even react when Tony started tinkering with it.