Word Count (this chapter): 3417

- - -Chapter 9: Filler Carter- - - - - - - - -

Steve sits on Thor's beanbag, his head in his hands. Loki and Thor are on the bed flipping through a library catalog.

"I just punched a kid with heart disease. In the face. Twice"

Loki flips a page. "This whole 'Steve-almost-kills-Tony-then-angsts-to-us-about-it-in-Thor's-room' thing is getting kind of old, don't you think?" he says, keeping his eyes on the catalogue. There's a sale on all classics from the 19th century. Thor grabs the book out of Loki's hands, and throws it onto the floor. Loki looks at him and Thor glares.

"Our friend Steve is in distress. We should at least give him our attention." Loki sighs and Thor diverts his attention to Steve. "Now for you, I would attempt lightening up on yourself, bro" Thor adds. "With what Tony did to Peggy, your reaction is understandable."

Steve looks at him sideways. "Okay, I know I'you guys have been gone on a family outing or whatever for the last few weeks, but what the hell kind of drugs did you give Thor to get him saying 'bro'?"

"Adderall," Loki says off-hand. Thor nudges his shoulder.

"No such thing!" There is a silence and Steve looks at Thor to go on. Thor clears his throat. "Well, it is a matter of growing up. I figured I would, at some instance, have to change my language, and, also, the persons ridiculing myself-me, I mean-for such speaking habits were becoming most… annoying."

Steve looks at him and shrugs. "Dude, talk however you want. It's better to talk weird then act weird."

"Yes," Loki says, rolling his eyes, "Besides, if anyone is hurting you, we can always get Steve to maim him."

Steve opens his mouth to yell at Loki, but Thor interrupts him.

"Yes, well." Thor starts. Steve closes his mouth and looks at him. "Hard to find a job that would take a person with such speaking patterns as I-me-seriously." Thor slams his head against the backboard of the bed. "Though old habits desist hard."

"You could be a kindergarten teacher?" Steve suggests, eyes narrowed in contemplation. "Didn't you say you wanted to work with kids?"

Thor nods, but Loki just laughs. "Right, but then he'd have to work with parents, too, and I don't think they would understand why their brat's sugar-daddy is bringing King Arthur week to parent's night every meeting."

Steve looks at Loki in disbelief. "Why do we hang out with you?" he asks.

Loki grabs the catalogue from the floor and marks off a title with sharpies. "Dunno. Maybe you two just need some black to counteract all the blond in the room."

Steve rubs the skin on his forehead in circles. "Unbelievable." He takes a deep breath and turns back to Thor. "But seriously Thor. I like the way you talk. It's… characteristical."

"That's not a word," Thor and Loki say simultaneously, then look at each other. Steve raises a brow.

"We read a lot," Thor explains. "Well, I engage-do-a lot, by least. At least. Ugh." Steve smiles and stands up, strolling over to them with his hands in his belt loops and a devious glint in his eyes.

"Ah, Comrades, so say you two engage in the vieweration of literaturations in time of frequentation?" Steve sits on the bed with a wide smile and puts his arms around both the brothers. Loki shrinks away from it; Thor frowns at Steve.

"Steve-" Thor warns. Loki points a finger up.

"Wait, frequentation is actually a word, so only punch him twice."

Steve throws his hands up in front of him. "Say you that?! For such speakrations of this documentation, you two would engage in… uh…"

"Giving you lacerations?" Loki suggests.

"Violent temptations?" Thor adds.

Steve glances from Thor to Loki and back. "Not beating the crap out of me for trying to make Thor realize being weird isn't necessarily a bad thing?"

"But, that, my friend, would not rhyme," Thor says. Steve laughs, but his laugh stops when he remembers he punched someone with heart disease in the face.

"Well, why'd you even hit him?" Loki asks later when they are settled on the bed with a Stephen Toger's Captain America movie in the VHS. Steve sighs and explains it all from the beginning.

Two weeks earlier, Steve plunks his tray across from Loki and Thor, dopey eyes and a dopier smile adorning the love-lost look on his face.

"Alright, so who or what exactly shoved gumdrops in your cavities?" Loki asks, picking at his tray.

"Peggy Carter," Steve says, jumping forward in his seat. "She transferred into my Home Ec. class, and oh my God! I think I want to marry her. She wants to join the military like I do, goes to the same church, has this perfect brown hair, her body is ridiculous, and her smile is just… God," he finishes, closing his eyes and sighing.

"She is a preferable woman, then?" Thor asks, wiggling his eyebrow.

"Preferable? She is the preferred! I mean we talked for one and a half hours and never ran out of things to say. And let me tell you, when we're co-officers in the military, we are going to make one hell of a duo. She's smart, you know? In the way a lot of people now-a-days just aren't, no offense. Really, I've never met anyone else who was as obsessed with foreign policy as I am."

"Steve, could you keep your erection under the lunch table at least?" Loki asks. Steve and Thor ignore him.

"So this woman and you have just met? Does her heart drum for you also?"

"I hope! I don't know. I mean, like, maybe. We just met, but she was smiling a lot. And laughed at, like, everything I said. And I think she pulled her shirt down a bit lower at one point."

"And, Brother Steve does have the build of royalty. She would be unwise to not take interest."

"Football does quite a bit for your muscles, let me tell you. And ROTC on the weekends and summer isn't exactly slowing me down if you know what I mean."

Loki bites his apple. "You know, every time you answer Thor like he just spoke a legitimate sentence when he talks all weird-assly you're only enabling him."

Steve keeps his eyes on Thor and reaches with his right arm across the table, poking his pointer finger in Loki's cheek. Loki bends away from it. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for the off switch," Steve says, continuing to prod Loki's face. Thor shakes his head.

"A search in vain, my friend. Many trials I've had over years far more than your own."

"Maybe I'll find something you won't," Steve says and Loki stands up deadpan with his lunch-tray.

"I'm gonna go let you two be blond for a little bit; call me back when the collective IQ tips 80 again." Loki walks away, leaving to two to squeal over Peggy Carter. He is supposed to be leaving on an apparent 'family outing' with his apparent 'family' this weekend, and is expected to survive an entire week with Thor and the Odinsons. Mr. Odinson is still at Loki's neck, and the only reason Loki even accepted the dumb invitation was to give Stark some cool-down time from being pissed at him for telling Steve he has heart issues, which is apparently a big deal despite it not mattering at all.

But then it turned out Stark was too distracted with his new boyfriend Banner to even remember Loki exists, so Loki is being forced on this trip with nothing to show for it. He sighs and tilts his lunch at the trashcan, watching the food slug off the tray into the bin.

Tony notices Peggy one day at lunch when she sits with a group of girls at Tony's usual table. The first thing he notices is how her breasts pull the buttons of her blouse against the fabric and the way she can wrap her lips of a burrito and bite half of it down in one go. He picks up his tray, and plops it down between her and Vanessa. He strikes up some casual conversation about nothing with Vanessa, then turns his attention to Peggy.

"Tony Stark," he says, extending a hand. "I believe we haven't met before?"

She takes his hand, giving him a firm handshake that hurts Tony's hand slightly. "Peggy Carter. I'm not new, but my schedule got changed around so I'm in this lunch now since Home Ec. is now during my old lunch period."

"Really?" Tony says. He smiles. Girls have told him they love his smile. "You like Home Ec.? I hear Mr. Ray grades his cupcakes pretty intensely."

She laughs. "Yeah, I love it, actually. Cooking is awesome. I'm a little awful at it, though."

Tony shrugs, his eyes glossing over with predation. He smirks. "I'm sure you make up for it with your other talents."

Her face tints red and she glances away with a smile to match Tony's own. Tony scoots a little closer.

"I try my best," Peggy says. "But, hey. Come over my house some time and I'll show you my real talent lies."

"Was that a sexual advance?" Tony asks, putting his hand over his heart in mock-dramatics. "Why, Miss Carter, I never!"

"Sexual—oh, no." She laughs. "No, um. We actually have a mini shooting range in my back yard. I can hit a bull's-eye from fifty feet away with my pistol." She makes a gun with her hand and puts it at Tony's nose and shoots. "Bam, just like that."

"Well, hopefully the bull's eye isn't me."

Peggy looks at him playfully. "Hopefully."

The bell rings, and Tony leaves lunch with a smirk and Peggy Carter's phone number programmed into his phone.

Steve has known Peggy Carter for a week and a half, and is definitely in love with her. Definitely. He asks for her phone number three days after meeting her, and once he has it, they text every day. Steve calls her on the phone and they goof around for hours until it's time to go to bed at 9:00pm or until one of them has to leave. Everything goes great until Steve asks Peggy what she's doing Friday night.

Tony has known Peggy Carter for a week and a half, and is definitely going to fuck her. It's inevitable really. He goes over her house three days after meeting her and watches Peggy shoot guns and asks her if there is anything else she'd like to make shoot. It's an awful innuendo, but Peggy rolls her eyes and smiles with a glint of attraction and asks if she could head over to his place Friday night. Tony will have to run it by Bruce since he's staying with him, so he tells Peggy that if his place is off the menu, they can always meet by the park 15 minutes off from Stark Mansion no one's technically allowed in after 8:30pm. Tony hasn't slept with anyone since his operation—excluding Bruce, but then again that wasn't exactly the kind of sleeping together Tony had in mind—and misses the feeling of another person beneath him. He misses the pleasure. He texts Peggy later to confirm that they're meeting at the park Friday after Bruce tells him his house is out of the picture.

Steve doubletakes at his phone.

well friday I actually have a date! with that really cute tony kid from our lunch?
~Peggy!

Tony Stark?

yeap that's the one
~Peggy!

I hope you have a great time.

me too :) and thanks for being my friend steve. i don't really have a lot of people im close too. i guess most guys don't like a girl whose dream is to fire up assault rifles instead of ovens
~Peggy!

Steve tries very hard not to bang his head against the wall of him room and spits out a reply instead. Except the reply takes him about 10 minutes to type because Peggy is worthy of proper spelling and grammar, and Steve's eyes sometimes mix up letters when he's looking at them, so it takes him extra-long to check it. Also he may have spent the first five minutes just thinking of what to say.

You're perfect for that. For being strong and not letting anyone stop you… Tony's lucky to have you. But be careful with him. He has a bit of a reputation.

don't worry; we're just having fun. he's not the kind of guy I'd want to date. . . . or that any girl would want to date for that matter LOL! he's kind of a shark.
~Peggy!

So why are you seeing him?

ive always been kinda uncomfortable with sex but I want to get over that. tony may be a heart breaker but word in the girls locker room is that he's insanely considerate in bed and stuff. i mean, I don't want to be totally inexperienced when I do start dating someone I care about
~Peggy!

Steve is unsure if he should be happy Peggy doesn't actually like Tony, or distraught that she just wants to sleep with him. Steve takes a deep breath and puts his game-face on. It's time to bring out the cavalry.

Well I could always help you out with that too you know ;)

But the minute Steve presses "send," the cavalry turn into mice and scatter every which way, leaving Steve unarmed against Peggy's attack. What idiot would send that? He made it sound like he just wanted her the same way Tony did.

i don't want your help with that
~Peggy!

Oh. Alright. He's unarmed in No-Man's Land with bazookas firing from either trench. He's hit dead-on. Pain and embarrassment flood through him and how the hell does Tony make this look so easy? He starts to tap out a reply when his phone buzzes again. He looks at it.

you're more the person I want to be ready for than the one I want to get ready with
~Peggy!

Then suddenly, silence ices through the trenches and bullets evaporate in puffs of smoke and Peggy Carter wants to date Steve Rogers. Steve throws his phone on his bed and does a dance in his room, turning on his phone and calling Bucky, who's still off doing god-knows-what in Louisiana after his family moved a few years ago, and then text Thor and Phil (who was abroad in Paris for the semester), and everyone else on his contact list because Steve has so much happiness he is going to burst if he can't let it out to someone.

Phil's text in particular summarizes his situation: I have never found someone so happy that his crush is about to have sex with someone else.

But really, Steve's way too happy to care.

Saturday morning, Steve texts Peggy first thing.

You okay?

The reply is instant.

Better than okay :)
~Peggy!

And that's that.

Steve sees Peggy and Tony in the halls Monday morning, Peggy chatting up Jane from Chemistry, and Tony laughing about something with Bruce across the hallway. Tony and Peggy make eye-contact. Tony nods at her, and Peggy smiles back, but then looks away to talk more to Jane. Steve kind of wants to punch Tony, but it's not like Steve has a claim on Peggy or anything. Then Peggy sees him and her eyes light up. She smiles with all her teeth and runs up to him. Apparently, her ROTC camp gave her an award for having the fastest mile swim at Sunday's meet. Steve smiles back. Everything is good.

Then Tony makes the mistake of talking.

They're in Gym class stuck with a sub for Mr. Odinson, Thor and Loki missing from the class also since it's apparently family vacation week in the Odinson household. The sub just tells them to get a basketball and look like they are doing something. Steve is opens the equipment room door and Tony walks up and leans on the wall besides him, smirking. Bruce is off talking to the substitute about getting called out early to see his mom when Tony speaks.

"That Peggy girl, am I right?" he says simply. Steve bristles and turns to him.

"Excuse me?"

"Nah, I get it. I totally see what you see in her. But, just saying, she's kind of a weirdo. Wanted to kiss me when her breath smelled like her dinner and I swear, it's not that hard to wrap your lips over your teeth when giving a blowjob. I mean, she's cute, but I guess she's just a little desperate for my taste—"

Steve Rogers punches Tony Stark so hard in the face both Stark's eyes turn black. He then asks Peggy Carter out on a date. She says yes.

Steve lasts one day before he runs to Loki and Thor's, overcome with guilt and wheezing because he doesn't have a car yet and literally had to run to their house a few miles away. Thor lets Steve in, and they go into Thor's room and talk.

The first Monday at school after Tony moves out, Bruce finds a dish of sautéed vegetables wrapped in plastic and sitting inside his locker with a note taped to the top. 'Outside for lunch today. Dad update' There's no signature, but Bruce knows who it's from. He folds the note into his shirt pocket and thinks about it all through Trigonometry.

At lunch, Bruce sees Tony sitting at their usual table, fiddling with something on his iPhone. Tony glances up at him, grins, then jogs over and hugs him. Bruce bristles, then returns the motion, wrapping his arms around Tony's torso. Their bodies are warm together.

"Dad had me on lock-down all weekend. No phone, no internet, no leaving. He made me do bonding activities," Tony says into his shoulder. Bruce releases the hug and looks at him. Tony's eyes are still swollen.

"I was worried he was mad at you with how he made you leave so quickly. Was it because you got hurt so bad?"

Tony rolls his eyes and laughs. "Nah, my dad wouldn't notice if I broke all the bones in my body. He was probably just getting mad that I liked your mom more than I liked him. It's not like he came to visit me at your place after I got hit. He was probably worried he'd get shot or something," Tony finishes with a chuckle.

"It's happened before," Bruce says looking to the side. "Not to me or my family, but we've had the whole fourth floor taped off for a month because of shooting."

Tony's eyes darken a notch. "You know, you two need to get out of there or something," he says, feigning nonchalance.

"I'll live," Bruce replies. He turns away to start on the stir fry Tony left him, but Tony grabs him by the shoulder and faces him again.

"You better," Tony says.

"I promise." Tony nods and pulls his hand off his shoulder. Then Tony starts laughing, putting his arm around Bruce's shoulder and collapsing down next to him.

"Jesus Christ, what Hollywood trash flick are we in now, huh? It just would kinda suck a lot if you weren't around. Not often I meet a guy who can actually stand me."

Bruce looks at Tony's smile and sees right through him. It's strange to see someone with as few actual friends as Bruce has, but what Tony needs right now is normalcy, so Bruce shrugs out of his grasp and shoves him, joking back, "Where'd you get the impression I could stand you?"

Tony laughs, and Bruce smiles too, glad to make Tony laugh forever. They eat sitting thigh-to-thigh, Tony's jeans warm against his. Bruce thinks about kissing Tony. He won't ever, though. Instead he pushes his glasses up, and when Tony goes to throw out their food, Bruce stays back alone while the bell for the end of lunch screeches throughout the building. Bruce Banner wants to kiss Tony Stark, but he wants a friendship with Tony even more. It's all Bruce can hope for; it's all he wants.

Bruce Banner is such a liar.