-Chapter 15: Boys Only- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A/N. Shout-out to Courtland who always leaves awesome comments! And to the anonymous reviewer, I wish I could reply to you in private, but just know that this story comes from a place of honesty and pain for me too. I like to think of this quote, however: "Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end yet." Lastly, a resounding thank you to all my lurkers who don't even have a account, but creep around this story anyways.

Steve's mom picks Tony up thirty minutes later. She looks tired, wrinkles and eye-bags away from the animated faux-debutante she had been with Howard the other night. Still, she greets Tony with an upbeat 'Hello!' that is miles too friendly for how Tony deserves to be treated at the moment.

"Thanks for picking me up," he says, sliding into the passenger seat.

"No problem, Tony. Steve was really excited to have you over."

"Right." Mentioning to Mrs. Rogers that Steve probably is only excited because he still feels guilty about causing Tony's heart breakdown or giving him a black eye doesn't feel like something Tony should be doing, so he lets the conversation drop. Honestly, he's still thinking about Bruce. A saturation of bone-numbing guilt and confusion overtakes him for the majority of the car ride. The way Bruce had said goodbye to him. That smile, that kiss. The impossible, incongruous confidence. Bruce is working an angle. Tony just needs to find the arc length.

Mrs. Rogers jerks Tony out of his thoughts when she pulls into the most cookie-cutter home Tony has ever seen. There is a bleach-white picket fence around the two-story, off-blue house's perimeter, and multi-colored petunias adorn the gardens to the left and right of the pathway. Outback, barks from what Tony can only assume is a golden retriever crack through the quiet. Tony mutedly hopes they'll find a dead body under the floorboards or something malevolent to balance out the vomit-inducing picturesqueness of it all.

Inside the house, unfortunately, the only bodies are Steve's, Loki's, and Thor's. They're bunched on the living room's couch, talking over the Marvel movie playing on the flat screen until Tony clears his throat, attracting their attention.

"Bro Stark!" Thor declares, standing up from the couch and running over to Tony to give him a meaty hug. Tony's eyebrows quirk.

"When did Thor start saying 'Bro'?"

"It's a long story," Loki replies. "Also from a long time ago. Where've you been?"

Thor releases the embrace. "Tony and I have spoken, even hung out as of recent, but I was usually—" Thor pauses. "Not in my correct state of mine. I was in Asgard, if you catch my current."

"Catch my drift," Loki corrects, "And what you mean is that you two were shit-faced."

Thor nods, "Essentially. It is hard for me to talk normally with copious amounts of alcohol in my system."

Humming in agreement, Tony saunters over to the couch and plops down between Thor and Steve. On the screen, Stephen Togers, thin and lanky, is getting power-roofied by Anthony Marks' dad. Tony has always hated this part of the movie. It's brawn over brain enforced in triplicate; the lanky intellectual nobody becomes the buff warhead hero. Tony's never believed a word of it.

"See now, there's the problem," Tony says aloud. "The strong guys fight the wars, but it's the smart ones that end them. Togers should have just been a strategist, work in hypotheticals. It'd be far more productive and have much less the frostbite potential."

Loki scoffs, "That movie exists already, and it's called Iron Man."

Tony tosses a popcorn kennel at Loki's cheek. "Anthony Marks had the right idea. Him and Tanner."

"Says the class valedictorian, sure," Steve teases. "You hate anyone with bigger muscles than you."

It hits a nerve Tony doesn't care to admit he has. Steve's punches always hurt. Later, once the first movie is over and The Mighty Lhor is halfway through, Loki says it's time to really start the party and pulls a zip-lock bag of three blunts out from his backpack under the couch. Tony's face lights up.

"Now that's my kind of popcorn," Tony says. "You have that all day in school?"

Loki smirks. "Not the whole day. Romanoff passed it on to me during lunch." He fiddles with the bag between his fingers, unzipping and zipping it again. Tony's eyebrow quirks.

"Natasha sold you them? She doesn't smoke or deal last I checked. That, and she hates you."

"Well, she doesn't hate Steve or Thor, and I told her everyone would be taking a drag, so I doubt it's poisoned."

Steve stands up suddenly, his hands in the air. "Wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait. When did I agree to this? I did not agree to this. No drugs, no alcohol. Throw it out outside or find another house, Loki. You know I don't do that stuff. Hell, you know I don't like being around people who do that stuff." His tone is halfway kidding, but it's clear that he doesn't want the festivities near him for the time being.

Rolling his eyes, Loki lobs his knapsack over his shoulders. "Out of respect for our lovely hostess," he starts, "I will dispose of the paraphernalia outside. However, there is quite a bit of it." Loki eyes Thor and Tony. "I may need some assistance."

"I am going to end you, Loki," Steve says. Putting a hand on Roger's shoulder, Tony gets up with a cheeky grin.

"Come on now, Steven. Don't be such a prude. I'll make sure personally that Loki doesn't have a gram of that stuff left by the time we come back in, okay?"

"Not okay! Who said this was okay? You guys are unbearable; I should have just invited Natasha and Clint."

Tony blows him a kiss, following a chuckling Loki out the back door, Thor close behind. He can hear Steve groaning. Once outside on the porch's steps, Loki blows a ring of marijuana smoke into Thor's face before passing the lit bowl to Tony. Tony reaches up to inhale and then pauses.

"You know, Rogers' is gonna need some sober company, and Thor won't be nearly as funny high if I'm not fully cognizant," he says, handing the bowl to Thor. Loki and Thor call him a lightweight as he heads back inside the house, flipping off the Brothers Karamazov. Being honest, Tony didn't want to get too buzzed or too drunk to forget that texting Bruce is off limits. Marijuana's always made Tony more easygoing; High Tony would probably think that Bruce just needed a bit of warming up for them to get along again. Sober Tony, however, isn't so optimistic. If Bruce ever does decides to forgive him, it will take Tony a lot more than sending fifty apology texts one night while he's drunk and high. Tony has to be patient. (Tony hates being patient.)

Inside Rogers' house, Tony spots Steve still glued to the couch. The TV screen has gone black and the pillow Steve is holding to his chest looks like it's going to explode if Steve grips it any tighter. Coming to a stop at the side of the couch, Tony taps the back of Roger's shoulder.

"You okay, Stars 'n Stripes?"

Steve lifts his head from the pillow, crease marks from its seams engraving red lines across his cheeks.

"I'm fine, Tony. It's just—" Steve bites his upper lip and pauses. "It's easier with Thor and Loki and even you here to distract me. Otherwise, I can't think about anything else." The 'else' is implicit. "I just get in these moods."

"You could have come with us. We wouldn't have forced the weed down your throat," Tony says, leaning down on the armrest of the couch. Steve shakes his head.

"I don't want to be around that. I'm actually pretty pissed that Natasha would give him that crap for tonight. She knows I don't touch drugs."

"Maybe she thinks it will help you lighten up."

"I don't want to have to smoke pot to not feel like I'm dead all the time, Tony!" Steve yells. "I mean, fuck, if I start now, I'm not going to be able to stop. I know I won't. Not if it makes me feel any better about this."

Cans of beer with Rhodney and making sure Howard won't be home for the next hour flash through Tony's mind. Tony had smoked his first bowl in seventh grade. He'd had his first beer in fifth. It was just harmless fun, and Tony could still function without his alcohol fixes every Friday night. Before the drugs and alcohol, it was sleeping. After mom died, Tony would sleep for hours on end, getting up only for meals and school. Sleep, beer, pot, sex later once he started eighth grade. For a period of time, Bruce was his coping method. Then Tony had combined him with sex, two systems in one, double the relief and double the side effects.

Steve wasn't like Tony, however. Steve was better, stronger, more muscular.

"You're not going to go on a bender, Steve," Tony says. "You have more control than that."

"Right now? I'm not too sure about that."

Tony is really shit at dealing with other people's feelings. He glances at the ceiling aimlessly, hoping something not-terrible to say will be scrawled in the eggshell-white paint chips. While he's searching, he hears Rogers exhale.

"But thank you for coming in. I know it probably wasn't for me, but I appreciate it."

"You're so gay, Rogers." And that's coming from someone who fucked a man last night. A twinge of guilty nausea surges through Tony's stomach. He swallows it down with a smirk as Steve laughs.

"Oh shut up. You and Bruce were practically dating before you two stopped talking to each other."

The bemusement on Tony's face falls dead. "How did you know Bruce and I weren't talking?"

Steve shakes his head. "I dunno, Tony, because I'm not an idiot? Besides, last time I asked you about him, you'd tensed up like I'd threatened to kill you or something. It was obvious something was wrong."

"Well, it's fixed now," Tony says. "So you can stop worrying."

"Oddly enough, Bruce wouldn't tell me what was up either when I asked him. Last month."

Any sympathy Tony might have been feeling for Steve is outweighed by an unflaggable urge to punch him in the jaw. "Nothing to tell," Tony replies. "We were never that close; now we're less close."

"Right."

"I am right. Glad to hear you admit it for once, Rogers."

Tony elbows Steve in the arm, who continues, unaffected. "Though, I couldn't imagine it was something Bruce did. The guy is like a teddy bear. Me and Peggy double dated with him and Betty one time, and he was so stressed over making sure everyone had a good time, I don't think he even enjoyed himself, and he's not a quarter as close to us as he was to you."

"Are you implying that it's my fault? What am I asking for; of course you are." Standing up, Tony faces away from Steve and cracks his wrists with his palms. "Everything is my fault, consistently," he scoffs. "Clearly, I've never had anything bad happen to me my entire life and am just a leech that sucks the joy out of people through their sex organs until nothing's left but misery and despondency."

Steve pauses. "Wait, did you and Bruce had sex?"

Tony pauses a beat. Then he rolls his eyes. "God, no. Get your mind out of the gay pornos your mom doesn't know you're watching, Rogers."

"I don't watch gay porn, Tony," Steve says with a laugh. Tony shrugs.

"Sounds like something someone who watches gay porn would say."

"It also sounds like something someone who doesn't watch gay porn would say."

They stare at each other for a second before breaking out in a fit of giggles. Just then, the back door opens, and Loki and Thor step through, confused. Loki waves his hand over the scene in front of him as if testing if his eyes were tricking him or not.

"Are you two getting along?" Loki drawls, sauntering over to the couch. "That's fucking hilarious."

Thor, meanwhile, lingers back by the doorway, fixated on a spider climbing up a tiny yellow web in the corner of the kitchen.

"Is he okay?" Steve asks, gesturing to Thor.

"He's fine," Loki slurs. "I did, now I did, I did most of the alcoholic beverages and he, well, Thor is a vegetarian at heart. He loves his greens." The joke seems to crack Loki up as he erupts into a fit of laughter, prompting Steve to inch away from him towards Tony's side of the couch.

"Breaching the 'no-homo' zone, Stars 'n Stripes," Tony says, leaning away.

"All of it," Loki declares, "All of the homosexuality, Brothers. I think we should just orgy, just do it, have it be done. On our homestead, it is, essentially important. I mean, me and Thor could—"

"Oh my god," Tony says with an ecstatic grin. "When Loki gets drunk, he talks like Thor sober."

Steve's mouth drops. "Jesus, you're right. That's hilarious."

"Mhmm."

"Brother!" Loki calls towards the kitchen. "We're orgying. You should come, now and later."

"We're not gonna have an orgy, right?" Steve asks Tony. In response, Tony wiggles his eyebrows and puts his hand on the inside of Steve's thigh, making Steve jump from the couch with red tinting his cheeks. "Don't just do that you jerk!"

"B-baka!" Tony replies. "It's not like I wanted you to notice me or anything."

Steve's face scrunches. "What's a baka?"

Bruce would have gotten the joke, Tony thinks, getting up from the couch. He strolls past Rogers back towards the kitchen where Loki and Thor are in a heated discussion.

"People can have threesomes, Thor. They exist," Loki says, swishing the beer in his freshly-poured solo cup.

"They cannot, Brother. The positions are implausible. Perhaps three people in a bed, making merry with each other in sets of two, but there are simply not enough orifices in the human body to equally satisfy all three at once. At the very least, a system of turns would have to be implemented."

Huh, Tony thinks. Maybe they are having an orgy.

"Well, what is the guy-to-girl ratio we're considering?" Loki asks. "Lesbians could just lay in a triangle like some geometric human centipede."

"Assume there is one penetrating object," Thor counters. He turns and then digs through the kitchen's drawers under the microwave. Seconds later, a phallic breadstick and a two-pack of Boston Crème mini-donuts are in his hands. "Observe."

Thor unwraps the donuts and places them with the breadstick on the counter in front of Loki, who's starring quizzically at him along with Tony and Steve (who had reluctantly ventured to the kitchen in response to the commotion).

"Is Thor trying to cook?" Steve asks, pointing to the carbohydrates the adopted Odinson is arranging.

Thor sneers. "I am trying to showcase, not sauté." He moves the two donuts so the smaller one is facing the breadstick's base and the larger is off to the side. "Possibility one: a singular penetrative act. Cherry is receiving Pita; Sherry is observing."

"Is the breadstick having sex with the donut? Did he give them names?" Steve whispers to Tony, who nods in solemn confirmation.

"I'm afraid so, Rogers."

"Possibility two," Thor continues, rotating the breadstick. "Sherry is receiving Pita; Cherry observes."

"I am so happy I'm going to be able to remember this tomorrow," Tony says and reaches into his jacket pocket for his phone. Switching his camera app to video, Tony mounts the device against the toaster and presses record. "Thor's facebook page is never going to be the same."

"Possibility three requires Cherry to be pleasuring Sherry whilst Cherry receives Pita. Now, while all parties may be active in this variant, it is clear that only one instance of sex is occurring. Additionally, this position offers limited interest to Sherry, as Pita is free to touch and kiss Cherry, but Sherry is out of his reach. Once again, Sherry is not receiving an equal amount of attention."

"Is your argument, then, that threesomes cannot exist where everyone is being pleasured equally or that they cannot exist at all?" Loki interrupts.

"The former."

"Oh, well I can see that. No way at least one of the Crème twins aren't getting special treatment."

"My point exactly," Thor concludes. Sighing, Tony cracks his knuckles and steps up to the blonde-haired Odinson, pushing him to the side.

"Let me show you something about the laws of equilibrium, Odinson," he says, taking the donuts in hand. "Get me another breadstick, would ya Steve?"

Steve pauses, contemplating the situation's unyielding absurdity, before resigning to it and snatching another breadstick to hand to Tony who immediately breaks the stick in half.

"Application," Tony begins, jamming the broken end of the stick into the center of the larger donut, "Of a prosthetic enhancement device to Sherry, along with some rectal lubricant—" he fingers a dollop of cream from the donut's center and rubs it over its backside "—allows for a threeway penetrative system as demonstrated below." Positioning the full breadstick at the underside of the larger donut and the broken breadstick at the front of the smaller donut, Tony steps back in satisfaction. "All parties are engaged in a penetrative sex act, and receive equal pleasure. A thrust from Pita transfers through Sherry to Cherry just as a grind from Sherry affects Pita and her underling. Since Sherry doesn't have sensation in her phallic mechanism, she doesn't receive any additional pleasure from it, balancing her out with Cherry and Pita, who are both in penetration with only one party. Pita, also, though unable to kiss Sherry, can kiss Cherry who can kiss Sherry and Pita. Thus, everyone is equally pleased."

All of Thor, Loki, and Steve stare at Tony silently until Tony reaches for the smaller donut and takes a bite out of it. "Huh," he says finally. "We should have named her 'Strawberry.'"

None of the observers disagree with him.

It's a weird dream for Bruce. He has sex dreams often enough, but usually they're nondescript, blank faces fulfilling blank fantasies based on whatever porno he'd read most recently or a blurry him and Tony before they'd stopped talking. This one, however, is alarmingly clear:

He's eating out Betty's tits, her purple button-down halfway off her pale shoulders when Tony leans over him and kisses his neck. His palm guides Bruce's face back to him, lips mouthing at his as Betty pulls Bruce's jeans over his ass. For some reason, Betty has a strap-on in this dream—in real life, she was a vanilla bottom—which Bruce settles onto as Tony bends down and wraps his lips over Bruce's cock. The sucking and fucking is unbearable, an influx of stomached-warming good that has Bruce coming into Tony's mouth and waking up alone and dripping with sweat on his bed sheets.

Well, Bruce is definitely bi, Bruce thinks.

Now all that's left is to figure out what Tony is.