A shorter chapter this time round! Don't worry, the action's gonna pick itself up soon enough ;)

- Chapter 5 -
Birthday Candles

"And so you slept with another guy?" Clint narrowed his eyes at Tony. "Wow, well done Tony. Continue showing your homosexual preferences, and I might just stay out of your way. For real." He shuddered, then continued. "Man, I have no idea how you can just give up on...boobs."

"Fyi Barton, sleeping with men does not mean I'm gay." Well, not fully anyway, he thought. "I actually still like getting some pussy now and then. And guys have boobs too." Tony added defensively. Admittedly, sleeping with strangers wasn't all new to him. But this Loki...somehow he just couldn't place his finger on him. There was something otherworldly about that guy. Things ended up sounding cheesy whenever he tried to describe Loki.

"Okay, so he has like really beautiful dark hair, really beautiful green eyes and a really hot ass? Sounds like a princess to me." Natasha shrugged.

"Hey, don't twist my words. I didn't say it like that." Tony looked affronted.

"Actually, you did." Quiet Bruce Banner peered up from the science journal he had been reading.

Case in point.

Although Tony didn't let Bruce's quiet demeanor fool him. In reality, it was very very very extremely dangerous to make Bruce angry. He had slipped into a foul mood once over a slice of pizza that Clint had stolen from him. They had to spend weeks living on takeout as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents repaired the damage. And then just because they could, they had charged all the expenses to the Avengers' account. The sneaky bastards.

Bruce, quiet most of the time, content to read his science reviews, was actually a pretty sharp man. He caught on most things automatically, even things left unspoken. He was kinda cute too actually, thought Tony, and then he mentally smacked himself on the forehead. Shit. Why was he thinking of such stuff? Bad Tony, bad.

"So sue me. Okay, so maybe he was a little seductive, maybe he was a little alluring, but that's all over now, right guys? Back to square one? Avengers assemble, and shit like that?" Tony spread both his hands in a reconciliatory gesture.

Natasha cleared her throat. "I really hope so, Tony," she said softly. "The past month had been...difficult." It was clear that this was a difficult topic to broach. She looked uncomfortable, even in a soft grey hoodie and black trackpants.

"What do you mean difficult? Cause if you mean being a pain in the ass, then I've always been difficult. Been difficult my whole life." Tony laughed, but it faltered when he realized that none of them caught his eye. "Guys?"

"The thing is...you were abnormally...destructive." Clint's expression suggested that he would rather have his skin ripped off from his entire body than have this conversation right now.

Tony had always been an unusually difficult man to talk to because of his insurmountable ego, but now it was impossible.

"Someone explain to me what the hell is going on," Tony's eyes flashed darkly. "Or I will rip this place apart." He liked his friends, sure, but sometimes they were a pain in the ass.

Natasha Romanov, or the Black Widow, was an extremely agile assassin and could think on her feet as fast as she could steal cookies from the cookie jar. Clint Barton, Hawkeye and long-timed rumored boyfriend of Natasha (Tony has known they were together ever since Jarvis caught them making out on the couch in the common room), could shoot the eye out from a chicken. In five miles. Bruce Banner was the gentle giant, until he turned angry, and then he was the more-green-and-less-gentle giant, Hulk. The last member was Steve Rogers, who was also the nation's hero and poster boy, Captain America. But no one really called him 'Captain', unless it was during missions, and that was protocol really. And he was mother to them all, always fussing over their meals and exercise.

They were all brilliant and everything, but can't they stop beating about the bush here? Already, Tony could feel his ego prickling.

"Now you sound just like Hulk, no offense big boy," and Bruce waved his comment away. Turning serious brown eyes onto Tony's own ones, he said "Man, you were out of control. Getting drunk, turning up half-dead, not sleeping enough. Steve was so worried. And then there were the mood swings."

Everyone in the room, which is to say the entire team except Steve, who wasn't here, nodded.

"Those were bad. You almost made Bruce angry." Natasha added quietly.

"You wanted me to join you and one of your...she-males in a threesome." Bruce pushed his spectacles up his nose bridge from where it had slipped. "And you refused to take no for an answer."

"Oh, you did sleep though. Sleeping around, that is. About half Manhattan now knows you on a personal, first-name basis." Clint chuckled at his little joke but was soon silenced by Tony's dark look.

"Come on, it wasn't all that bad as I remembered it! I was having a bit of a crisis, that's all." The truth was, Tony couldn't face up to all these accusations, not now. The very thought of himself disgracing the Avengers, not doing his duty well enough, not fulfilling his role, overstepping certain unnamed boundaries, looking for the same face among the many strangers he had brought home...

The atmosphere was suffocating itself with tension, and Bruce looked ready to erupt into his monstrous green twin. Hulk was much less easier to rear back in a tension saturated situation.

Just as Tony was about to call it quits and leave the room without handing them their souvenirs, Steve Rogers burst into the room with his brilliant smile.

"Welcome back, Tony!" proceeding to envelope Tony in a big hug.

Thank God for Steve Rogers.

The negative energy dissipated in a flash. Everyone let out a huge sigh of relief, and even Tony, who usually had no patience with Steve's ye olde fashioned styles of greeting, let him in a rare show of generosity. Bruce looked a little less green as well.

"What's wrong? Something happened?" Steve narrowed his eyes and sensing no response, quickly turned his attention back to Tony. "Sorry I wasn't here earlier. Had a meeting with Fury." he shrugged his shoulders as if to say, you know, the works.

And Tony did know. Being the leader of the Avengers meant paperwork, meetings, conference calls, press releases (because, heck, were they popular) and zero me time. He could only imagine how it felt like to be Steve. No wonder he was always so chirpy around them. Long nights up all alone with work must have been lonely. Tony knew that feeling. Steve craved human warmth, and he looked for it in the company of his friends.

"Hey Captain. Long time no see, and no problem." Tony grinned at the childlike simplicity of the smile on Steve's face, and clapped a friendly hand on his biceps. "Working hard I see." Tony cocked an eyebrow. Was that a blush he saw spreading over Steve's cheekbones? Damn. His little one night stand must have been affecting him in ways he didn't even notice. Loki was quick to show emotions too, but somehow it was not like Steve. Loki was a bracing storm while Steve was a summer gale. It was different.

"Someone sure is chirpy. Feeling better after the Kyoto trip?"

Tony felt a twinge of annoyance but decided to ignore it. His friends had to stop asking whether he was okay, he felt right as rain. Heck, he felt as right as sunshine. He realized that Steve must have been the one to book the Kyoto trip. Well. Typical of him. Not that he minded as much anymore.

"I guess. Come and see what I got for you guys."

That immediately prompted a buzz of activity around Tony as the Avengers surrounded him, all interested eyes and prying fingers prodding the two large carriers he had with him. Even Bruce had set down his review.

"Guys, I appreciate your enthusiasm." Tony said in a mock sarcastic tone.

"Oh, don't be such a sap," Natasha swatted at him playfully. "Where's my present? What did you get me?"

Tony handed out the presents.

Natasha got a toy poodle plush, which she grabbed enthusiastically in her hands and squealed. It had curly brown fur and a pink ribbon around its collar. She spent the rest of the day bugging Clint about buying her a real one and acting like a little girl whenever someone passed her way, saying "Isn't she just an absolute darling?"

Clint, on the other hand, got the latest Final Fantasy game from Japan.

"Sweet! They haven't released it here yet!"

"Oh right. Remind me. That had absolutely nothing to do with the reason why I bought you the game. A simple thank you would have sufficed, just like Natasha. Spare me the squeals though." Tony rolled his eyes.

Bruce got a watch. It was a beautiful piece, all sliver and chrome and leather.

"You probably shouldn't wear it that much though," Tony wrinkled his nose. "At least, not till I'm done tweaking it such that your twin doesn't break it." He knew of Bruce's fondness of watches and how it saddened him that he was no longer able to wear any since the existence of his twin, who managed to break each and every one.

Bruce's eyes sparkled with gratitude as he said a soft 'Thanks'. Well, there's a good start.

Tony turned around to the accusing stare of Steve.

Steve looked embarrassed as he said gruffly, "Where's mine?" Steve sounded like a five year old who woke up on Christmas day to find no presents under the tree.

Tony chuckled. "Steve," playfully wagging his finger at the older man. "Didn't mommy teach you any manners?" Steve flushed an even darker shade of beet red. God, he was so cute to tease sometimes. And that, was for Kyoto, he thought silently.

"Just kidding, pal. Here." He handed him a wrapped package.

"Hey, why is his wrapped and mine isn't?" Clint protested and Natasha was about to follow suit when Tony shushed them.

"Steve likes things the ol' American way, and the cowboys told me that presents are only presents when they're wrapped." Tony winked. "Open it, go on."

Steve pulled the ribbons off the box.

"Jarvis, lights."

Instantly, the whole room was bathed in the soft glow that came from the 15 candles on Steve's cake.

"Happy Birthday to you..."

The birthday song finished with a whoop from the over-excited Clint who, with his speedy fingers, had lit all the candles the moment the cake was revealed.

"Happy birthday." Tony beamed. "Now make a wish honey! Before you blow them out."

There was still the faint lingering smell of smoke when Jarvis switched the lights on again at Tony's commands. Steve was looking like he was the luckiest man on Earth.

"We didn't forget your birthday," Natasha smiled.

"Or your present. Man, they called me when I was in japan just to pick out your gift! Here." Tony pulled a stuffed toy out from behind his back.

It was a Rillakuma bear. Two pink dots appeared on Steve's cheeks as he accepted the gift with a barely audible 'Thanks', clutching it preciously to his chest.

Tony smiled.

Kids.