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Tony loves parties.
He's known for it, and not just because of that time in his late teens (and twenties, and, okay, thirties) when he spent a lot of time vomiting in public and getting famous for various sex tapes. When Tony throws a party, people pay attention, people jockey for invitations, people hold their breath to see what happens. He can do, and has done, everything from filthy drug-fuelled bacchanals to elite society soirees (sometimes both at the same time), and aside from those who ended up briefly in jail or suddenly outed via the aforementioned sex tapes or indicted for tax fraud (which really only happened that once), Tony has never heard a complaint.
His parties are spectacular, and opulent, and above all memorable.
For all that, though, Tony has never before thrown a party for people he cared about; while Pepper and Happy and Rhodey have attended parties he's thrown, the parties were never about them – were, in fact, about everyone other than them. Tony supposes there's some boring moral in there about growth and love and whatever, but anyway, it comes down to: Tony isn't quite sure how to throw a party for his various superfriends.
Thor's back from, wherever, the dimension with all the dwarves, and Rhodey's finally back on the continent after endless War Machine deployments, and even Natasha and Clint are exempt from spy duty for the week; Carol's in space but is supersonic and has promised to fly back in time for the festivities; Pepper finally wrapped up whatever CEO business she was doing in Japan; and Bruce and Steve and Janet and Jane and Logan and Bucky and various others were around anyway. Tony's even invited Nick and Maria and Sitwell, even though they're all bound to be mood killers. He's even invited Reed, if only because it'd be weird to invite Sue without inviting him. And because, now he has Bruce and Jane around, they can make science-fun of Reed together in a corner somewhere.
So it's a perfect occasion to throw a party, since it's New Year's and everyone's in town and no one's died recently or anything and no monsters are currently trying to take over New York, knock on wood. Tony's ordered plenty of amazing food and plenty of amazing booze, because you can't really go wrong there, but beyond that he's kind of unsure – the usual glitzy entertainments and speeches and over the top sexual exploits seem unlikely to go over with this crowd. Normally he creates parties by inviting all the most interesting and fabulous and ridiculous and famous people he can, finding the right mix of personalities and proclivities to make something interesting happen. But thinking over his guest list, Tony belatedly realises that he's invited mostly science nerds, stoic military types and superspies, people who can't get drunk, and people who are painfully awkward in conversation. Thank god for Janet, at least.
It's also, Tony supposes, the smallest party he's thrown since he was old enough for parties that didn't involve pointy paper hats. How do you entertain just twenty or thirty people? Charades?
He's poking dubiously at a plate of extremely expensive cheeses in the party-staging kitchen when Bruce walks in. He's wearing a suit that doesn't fit him very well, because he refuses to use Tony's tailor or indeed Tony's advice, but somehow he still looks good, all broad shoulders and big quick hands. His hair is messy and his tie is ugly and askew and it's possible that Tony has a thing for the rumpled professor look. Possible. Probable even.
"All ready for the party?" Bruce grabs an hors d'oeuvre and pops it in his mouth, then makes a face.
"Yes. Don't eat that."
Bruce grabs a napkin and spits it back out. "Yeah, no kidding."
"I meant because it's for the party. Jesus. You don't like camembert?"
"I used to." Bruce looks mournful. "I went through a lot of changes a while ago, maybe you've heard? And my body chemistry is significantly different now."
"Hulk not like smelly cheese?"
"Or bitter things. Loves sweets, though. Like a kid." Bruce reaches for another tray – this one full of little delicate pastries – and Tony slaps his hand.
"You'll mess everything up," he says.
Bruce laughs, slides an arm around Tony's waist and pulls him close. "Look at you, fussing over details like a sweet little fifties housewife! You know, I used to hear about your parties on the news, and I have to say, I never imagined that you were in the kitchen beforehand making sure the canapés were just so."
"Yeah, well." Tony doesn't really know why he's in the kitchen in the first place. His staff all know what they're doing. And it's not like many of his guests have particularly discerning tastes; most of them have been either military or homeless at some point. And at least one of them is Thor, who once skulled back an entire bottle of crème de menthe in six swallows before wiping his mouth with his sleeve and pronouncing it delightful.
Bruce's other hand comes up to Tony's waist, and Tony is reeled in a little further until he's settled between Bruce's legs. Bruce is leaning back against the counter, probably messing up the cheese platter or something.
"You want it to be nice for us," Bruce murmurs, and it's almost teasing but not quite.
"Yes, I like my friends and want to do nice things for them, well done Sherlock – "
Bruce sort of stares intently at Tony's mouth for a minute and then reaches up with one hand, rubs his thumb over Tony's chin, scratches there with his thumbnail. Tony doesn't fidget, doesn't fidget, doesn't fidget, then fidgets and surges forward to take Bruce's mouth.
When it's over, Tony doesn't care quite so much about the cheese platter. Bruce smiles his slow smile and slaps Tony on the ass.
"Happy new year," he says. Tony gives him a grin.
"It's seven thirty."
Bruce pushes him off, heads for the door. He walks with that weird ambling confidence that he's had ever since the Avengers settled into being whatever it is the Avengers are, and his pants don't fit well but his ass looks great. His tie is even more askew, and also somehow uglier.
"It's gonna be fine, Tony," he calls back over his shoulder.
Tony blows out an annoyed breath through his nose and decides to go talk to the bartenders one more time. Make sure they've got fucking crème de menthe.
-
Bruce hates parties.
He's never really understood the whole idea behind them, that a bunch of people would want to all be in a loud room together, limiting their discussion to superficial topics and pretending to like one another.
Back in undergrad he had at least seen the point of having parties where people hooked up, or danced, or did whatever kinds of drugs they liked to do, but mostly he thought they were stupid. When he went further in academia and started attending department parties, faculty parties, dinners and events and prize ceremonies, though, he'd gained a whole new level of scorn for group gatherings where the main point seemed to be impressing other people by being the biggest asshole in the room.
Bruce has never been comfortable around impressive assholes, and never been comfortable around drunk people, and never been particularly comfortable around people, period, so back when he used to be a rising academic star with a bright future and a brand new military research grant he'd done his best to avoid them wherever possible.
Since he'd become a hulking rage monster of apparently infinite destructive capability, he hadn't really gotten that many party invitations.
Despite all that, though, he finds himself looking forward to Tony's New Year's party; looking forward to seeing Natasha and Clint now they're back in the US, to talking to Jane about her latest article, to maybe playing poker with Carol and Steve and Rhodey again while they all reminisce about their military times and Bruce ruefully reminisces about his being-hunted-by-the-military-times. He's looking forward to seeing what amazing outfit Janet decides to wear and which amazing alien friends Thor decides to invite. He's looking forward to being in a loud room full of impressive assholes getting drunk and . . . liking each other.
After the first few people arrive Bruce finds himself deep in easy, laughing conversation with Darcy Lewis, Jane's friend who he's met a couple of other times, and before long they're joined by Erik and Carol and Jessica, who all get going on the subject of genetic mutation and Charles Xavier while Bruce buries his face in his hands and pretends to despair over their complete lack of scientific knowledge on the subject.
"Erik, Erik, I trust you whenever you say anything about wormholes but honestly – " Bruce tries, while Erik laughs and Darcy makes a ribald comment about wormholes that even has Carol sniggering. It degenerates from there, until somehow Jessica is mock-threatening Bruce with a pheromone blast while Carol lights up the tip of her index finger threateningly.
"I will seriously hulk out and smash all of you, I swear," Bruce laughs. He feels a presence beside him, then, and looks up to see Pepper, who answers his immediate smile with one of her own. She's wearing a pair of jeans and a shiny silver shirt and she looks . . . comfortable, gorgeous and touchable and comfortable. She runs her hand over his shoulder, then slides forward to sit half in his lap, perching on one thigh. Bruce feels warmth in his chest that's not from the wine he's had. After a second, he gets it together to slip an arm around her waist, steadying her.
"Why are you threatening to turn into a monster and maim my party guests, Bruce?" Pepper asks, kissing him on the top of his head.
"Oh, you know, because they don't know very much about restriction enzymes," Bruce replies. As he says it, though, he thinks: because they know I don't mean it, and he thinks, because they could stop me if I tried. The idea leaves him dry-mouthed, and his hand tightens on Pepper's waist. She squeezes his shoulder in answer, maybe knowing what he's thinking, maybe not. Carol and Erik and Jessica and Darcy all smile at him softly, willing to joke about having to subdue him because they don't think they'll need to.
"I see," Pepper muses, mock-seriously. "Well, perhaps you'd rather leave us and go hang out with some people who do. Stop slumming with us mere mortals."
"Nah," Bruce says. He looks up into her eyes, and Pepper smiles down at him, quirks an eyebrow like she knows exactly what he's thinking. Knows what he's thinking and doesn't want to run away.
"Oh good," Pepper murmurs.
"Besides," Bruce coughs, breaking eye contact, "I don't think Carol's mortal. I'm pretty sure she stopped aging when she got superpowers, like I did."
For a second he's worried it's a non-sequitur, that talking about your friend's likelihood of outliving everyone she knows and cares about is maybe not the best light party talk, but then Carol nods ruefully and shrugs, and Erik cocks his head with interest, and Pepper's fingers rub slowly, absently, constantly, against Bruce's shoulder.
"Oh, that's just unfair!" Darcy complains.
"If you two want to stay this devastatingly gorgeous, I won't complain," Jessica says, winking at him and then waggling her eyebrows at Carol.
"You and me till the end of the world, Doc," Carol says, reaching out towards him with her fist. Bemused, Bruce bumps it with his own.
-
Pepper is very, very good at parties.
She sometimes likes them and sometimes loathes them, depending on the company, but she is always, unfailingly, good at them. Even when she lived in tiny, cramped apartments, people always gathered at her place, and she was always the host; always the one who knew when people wanted to dance and when they wanted to curl up on couches and talk, always the one who knew which people to send to the kitchen to do bizarre martini experiments and which people to pick to DJ and which people to smoke with out on the fire escape. She knows, instinctively, when to change the music – or, in the case of one of Tony's parties, the musicians – and when to intervene in a heated discussion, and when to get people drinking, and when to stop people from drinking. Pepper can read a party like she can read the NASDAQ, ebbs and flows and strange interactions all coalescing to form a chaotic, impossible, completely predictable whole.
She can, but tonight she finds she doesn't really want to. It was a long flight back from Japan the day before yesterday, following a long and arduous business trip, following a long and arduous eight months of wrangling superheroes, followin a long and arduous year and a half of running a multinational corporation. Pepper finds that she's tired. So she makes an executive decision not to notice when trays of food run empty (the staff will notice too, soon enough), not to care when the soft jazz isn't really working (it'll do), not to check on anything or pay attention to anyone or stop Clint and Thor from challenging Steve to beer pong (Thor's favourite Midgardian sport after UFC, MXC, and synchronized swimming).
Instead, she curls up in a corner with Maria and Janet and complains about her job while they make sympathetic noises, which segues into Maria complaining about her job while Pepper and Janet make sympathetic noises, which segues into Janet telling hilarious behind the scenes Avengers stories, the kind that Tony and Bruce don't tell her because they mostly involve Tony making a fool of himself while Bruce was big and green and not paying attention. Pepper doesn't think she's ever seen Maria laugh like that, head thrown back and shoulders loose; the twinkle in Janet's eye says that maybe that's what she was going for when she started telling the stories in the first place.
"I wonder what kind of trouble Tony and Bruce are up to," Pepper says, glancing around the party for the first time in ages. To her surprise, everyone else managed to move the tables and chairs back against the wall without her even noticing, and Darcy is speaking to the musicians, and it looks like they're setting up to dance.
"Yeah, it's almost midnight," Maria says, glancing down at her watch. At this, Pepper startles, but she takes a breath and forces herself to notice that they've managed to get the champagne out and uncorked without her supervision. Though Logan is pouring, which isn't really the best thing for the floors.
Pepper stands, accepts an ebullient hug from Janet, and then, deciding to hell with it, pressing an ebullient hug of her own on Maria. Maria is loose-limbed and still smiling and hugs her back.
"Call me next week, yeah Potts?" she says. "I have a thing that SHIELD wants SI in on."
"You got it," Pepper agrees. Janet looks over Maria's shoulder and gives Pepper the sisterly eyebrow waggle of get-the-hell-out-of-here-I'm-making-a-move, and Pepper makes herself scarce to go look for her boyfriends.
She finds Tony in the kitchen, of all places, lighting something on fire with Reed; Tony always claims to hate him right up until he needs someone to light something on fire with and Bruce isn't around. Luckily Sue's there too, and Sue's her own fire suppression control system, so things aren't too out of hand.
"Pepper!" Tony cries when he sees her, and almost drops his blowtorch in his hurry to get over to her and sweep her up in his arms. She laughs as he spins her.
"Pepper, we are in the process of inventing a most amazing culinary delight," he says.
"I'm sure you are," she agrees. She's had four glasses of very nice scotch and Tony is holding her up in the air and she didn't even have to get the champagne uncorked or speak to the musicians herself. "But you have to come with me now to find Bruce. It's almost midnight."
"Right, yes, Bruce," Tony agrees. "Let's go."
He takes her hand and leads them around the edge of the party, which isn't really his style. He doesn't even stop and take a glass of champagne from Logan, which is definitely not his style. Pepper knows parties, and she knows Tony, and she especially knows Tony and parties.
"Why were you hiding out in the kitchen with Reed and Sue?" she asks softly as they walk together. Disengaging her hand from his, she manages to pick up three flutes of champagne, handing one to Tony and hanging on to the other two.
"I'm really very fond of Reed. And Sue. And kitchens."
Pepper gives him a sideways glare, and Tony sighs.
"Tony, honestly."
"I know, I know."
"You don't even know what a kitchen is for."
"Look, it's just – "
"Just what?"
"I didn't really. Feel. Like being with people."
"Reed and Sue aren't people?"
"Well, I mean, technically, I'm not sure if they – "
"You didn't feel like being with Avengers."
" – qualify after all the crap that's been done to their bodies, but then, I mean, hardly any of us would – "
"You didn't feel like being with people you cared about."
Tony sighs. "Are we done psychoanalyzing me now? I think Bruce is over there."
They find Bruce riding piggyback on Steve's shoulders, jousting with one of Clint's arrows against Rhodey, who is riding piggyback on Thor. Rhodey is armed with what looks like a sword made entirely of hors d'oeuvres toothpicks and possibly hair elastics.
"That better not be one of the explosive arrows," Tony calls, sounding pinched and worried. Pepper's surprised she didn't think to say it.
"I'm pretty sure it's not!" Bruce calls back, laughing as Thor shoulders into Steve, knocking them both over. They fall, missing the couch cushions that were apparently spread on the floor for this purpose, but Steve twists impressively in midair so that he ends up on the bottom and takes the brunt of it. Bruce just keeps laughing.
"Thanks, Cap," he says, and Steve grins at him.
"I wouldn't want you hitting your head and ruining the party, Doctor Banner."
"Eh, the Hulk's a party animal," he shrugs, before accepting Rhodey's offered hand up. "Best two out of three?"
"I think your mom and dad are here to pick you up," Rhodey says, nodding over at Pepper and Tony.
"Hey Bruce," Pepper smiles, and Bruce, turning towards them, softens.
"Hey guys," he says. "It almost midnight?"
"Almost," Pepper agrees.
"Are you okay?" Tony asks, frowning at Bruce, brow furrowed.
"I'm great. Did you know Steve knows how to make a bong out of a potato?"
"Steven has shown us many wonders this night," Thor agrees.
"The real question is, where'd you find a potato?" Pepper asks.
"See, that's exactly what I – " Bruce begins. He stops talking and cocks his head when he sees the way Tony's fingers are clenched around his champagne flute, the tension in his jaw, the way he's not making any jokes about Captain America getting high. He turns to Pepper. "What's up with him?"
"He needs a break from the party," Pepper informs him. Bruce nods knowingly. Tony sputters.
"What? I need no such – what does that even mean, a break from the party?"
Bruce takes his champagne from Pepper and slings an arm around Tony's shoulders. Pepper takes Tony's hand, and together they start leading him back towards one of the cozy little sitting rooms.
"It's when you get tired of being around people, and start to get jittery and annoyed and want to get away from the party, so you go hang out in a dark room for a while," Bruce explains.
"You're making this up," Tony says, suspicious.
"Nope," Pepper says, smiling. She shuts the door behind her, and then it's just the three of them, bathed in the warm light from the lamp in the corner, settling in on the soft couch together. Pepper takes care to set her champagne flute down on the table, then, thinking about it, relieves Tony and Bruce of theirs, too.
"It can happen when you feel emotionally invested in the people you're with, but can't keep that level of emotional energy going for a long period of time," Bruce explains. When Tony glares at him, he continues, "Emotions are these things where – " and breaks off, laughing, as Tony starts poking and slapping at him.
"Shut up, Banner, Jesus, I'm fine," Tony says, as Bruce laughs and covers his face with his arms. Tony stops and slumps back against the cushions. "Just because I hang out with Reed Richards for a little while doesn't mean I need an intervention, Pepper."
"He was hanging out with Reed Richards?" Bruce asks Pepper, alarmed.
"In the kitchen," Pepper replies.
"Classic symptoms."
Tony sighs and buries his face in his hands. "What did I ever do to deserve you two," he mutters. Pepper laughs.
There's some shouting in the other room, the sounds of a New Year's party getting ready to start counting down.
"Oh, hey, it's starting, we gotta – " Tony tries to get up, but Bruce and Pepper each put a hand on his thigh and hold him down. "What? C'mon, guys, I wanna be out there, I have bets on who's gonna kiss who."
"Stay put," Bruce says.
"TEN!" says the party.
"Stay here with us," Pepper agrees.
"SEVEN!"
Tony looks at them both, then heaves a heavy, put-upon sigh and relaxes back into the cushions again. "Fine, whatever," he says.
"THREE!"
Pepper leans forward, kisses Bruce's mouth. He's hot, he's always so hot, and soft, accepting.
"TWO!"
When they break apart Bruce bends down towards Tony, and Tony surges up to meet him, all his grumpy sullenness forgotten as Bruce slips him some tongue and rubs a hand lightly over his chest. Pepper can see Tony soften as Bruce kisses him, and she's sure, in that moment, that they all deserve each other.
"ONE!"
"Cmon, c'mon," Pepper complains, rolling her eyes, and Bruce pulls away, smiling his soft wry smile. As soon as he's out of the line of fire she leans down, leans in, and as she touches her lips to Tony's she hears the crowd in the other room shout, Happy New Year!, and she thinks, yes, it will be.