"Because arguing is what we do best here recently," Clint sighed.

"Great 'happily ever after,' huh?" Natasha snorted.

"We're okay, Tasha."

"Not without them, we won't' be," she sighed, running her fingertips along the soles of Clint's socked feet.

He returned the favor and she kicked him lightly for it as she suggested optimistically, "Maybe Loki will find them for us next?"

"Loki's under the impression that your bond is complete and I've not told him otherwise," JARVIS declared.

"You'll tell him about Steve's seven, but not our two?" Clint protested.

"He only asked about Captain Rogers, never about you. As it is, you'll have to trust me when I tell you that for now it's better this way," JARVIS said.

Natasha rolled her eyes, muttering, "Perfect."

It actually was rare that JARIVS made good use of the filters that he had in his system – Pepper had once paid a brilliant rogue hacker to make them better then even Tony knew they were – but JARVIS did know better than to trust his creator with much personal information on his teammates. Therefore, by the time Tony went down to his lab and asked JARVIS for an update on the just-completed video scanning, the AI was ready with his answer.

"So, have Rock of Ages and Darcy touched?"

"Yes, sir," he answered automatically – which technically wasn't a lie. They had touched, just never skin on skin, like Asgardian soulmarks required. "No soulmarks have ever developed between them though."

"Pity," Tony commented. "Don't all the others on the team have multiple soulmarks according to their files?"

"Yes, sir, but may I remind you that you not to know that information – nor, for that matter, was SHIELD's file on Thor as comprehensive as it was on the others when you received those files."

Those soulmarks… they were what came back to skitter around in Tony's brain every so often, seeing as he knew full-well how difficult it could be to have an incomplete soulbond. Maybe not knowing when they had a third was helpful to Asgardian soulmates.

Tony knew that JARVIS regretted giving him access to those soulmarks; he thought it was a bad thing that he knew such a personal thing about his teammates, but it wasn't as though Tony was sharing the information. The Avengers themselves didn't even know that he knew!

In Thor's case, he genuinely didn't know, but still… Tony wasn't good with people, but because he knew what it looked like, he just had this niggling feeling that Thor and Jane were missing a third – but how to solve the problem?

"Captain Rogers?" JARVIS spoke up hours later, breaking into the middle of the conversation that Bucky, Peggy, and Steve were having in the middle of Steve's living room. "Mr. Stark has a car waiting for you three to go to dinner."

"Are we in the mood for that?" Steve asked, looking at Bucky and Peggy curled into each other on the couch beside him. They hadn't really moved from this spot since leaving the infirmary and there was a fair chance they wouldn't want to any more than he did.

"You'll thoroughly enjoy it if you do," JARVIS promised. "You have my personal promise, though Mr. Stark makes his own. He inherited the place from his father. It's small, but you'll be totally alone there tonight."

"Out of the Tower alone?" Steve repeated, slowly beginning to change his mind. "This might be a good idea after all." Particularly for Bucky…

"There are clothes waiting for you in three of the bedrooms," JARVIS informed them.

Peggy asked, "Is that why all of those machines were crisscrossing the apartment earlier? To get those things ready?"

"Yes, ma'am," JARVIS replied. "My apologies if the bots disturbed you."

They'd startled Bucky – as most things in the Tower seemed to – but otherwise, "It's fine," Steve told the AI before untangling himself from Bucky, who hadn't let go of him since they'd left the HYDRA base. "Come on; let's go investigate what Tony's got up his sleeve for us."

An hour later, the trio had showered and dressed up in the nice clothes that Tony had left for them to find before they made their way down to the garage. As they settled into the limo, Peggy remarked, "I kind of feel bad for not talking to Tony yet. I should probably sit down with him and discuss a few things very soon."

"Why?" Steve asked curiously.

"Hasn't he ever mentioned me – or any of the others?"

"He's never mentioned you in a personal way, if that's what you mean – just as you relate to SHIELD. And what… others?"

Peggy sighed weightily, answering, "Me and the other five of our soulmates. Howard… became a bit of a wreck, so once Tony was born, we all but raised him – by which I mean Eddie and Anna did and the rest of us helped."

"No, he's never mentioned that," Steve admitted carefully, trying not to show how surprised he was by that news while simultaneously soothing the way it had obviously bothered her. "But he's also a very private person. He doesn't like talking about his past."

"Which we are a very big part of," she added. "You two drove Howard a little bonkers after you disappeared – because our soulmarks did not, which is how we knew you were still alive. The other six of us ended up, as I said, being more like parents to Tony then his own parents."

"I'm sure he was happy to see you," Steve remarked. "He can't be too upset if he's set up whatever this is for us."

"I wonder if that's only because he hasn't figured out exactly how much we kept from him yet," she muttered darkly.

"What do you mean, doll?" Bucky asked, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

They'd spent the afternoon catching up on what had happened with Steve and Bucky and it was her turn to talk now, apparently.