Beauty and the Beast

Reasons

"Good morning Miss Potts." Steve adds a box of doughnuts to the common table, eager to get a reaction from Pepper when he opens the lid.

She smiles with an eagerness to snatch up her favorites, holding a coffee in the opposite hand, "Oh wow. I see a glazed! And a sprinkled- and a chocolate they all have my name on it! Thanks Steve."

"You're welcome ma'am."

Tony rubs the back of his neck, face in a daze as he wobbles into the kitchen. He's half dressed and it's one of the most disheveled looks Steve has ever seen on Stark.

Pepper sits at the table and observes, crossing her arms over his quiet nature;

"Ugh. I know what's going on...Are you hung over Tony? Is your head pounding? Was it the bourbon? Is that what you were doing all night?"

His head remains low and his voice quieter than usual as he moves to set a coffee up at their machine. He fumbles with the buttons and nearly drops his mug in the process, "Yeah."

Pepper stands and makes her way over to slap at him in her fury. Tony's jaw drops with a whine;

"OW-! Virginia Potts!"

"Tony Stark,' she responds back with an extra ounce of sass, 'I'm locking up the liquor if you keep this up."

He cuts her off by smacking her hand away and snatches a doughnut from her plate rather than Steve's box. He takes a brazen bite from her glazed preference.

She gasps, furious as he shoves the rest of it into his mouth;

"Excuse me!"

"You're excused."

Rogers turns to greet Thor and an exhausted Romanoff. Her tired eyes match Tony's, somber expression and overall quiet nature.

The demigod greets everyone with some statistics he's just learned about. He's rehashing news reports about how sugar is bad for humans, what soda does to a body.

Natasha rolls her eyes and snatches up a soda from the beverage fridge just to spite him. Her expression is blank as she aggressively uncaps and chugs her drink while facing the wall.

Pepper gives the girl a side eye, shifting between Stark and Romanoff. She raises her voice and smacks her hand on the table loudly once Barton enters the room with a smirking Banner;

"Alright! Tony?! Now that everyone's present, why do you tell me what you were doing last night?! Maybe the rest of the team can enlighten me somehow. What needs to be done until 3:43am?! Because believe me I checked the clock!"

Natasha rolls her eyes away from view while Tony digs himself further into a hole;

"We were just-! Watching videos-!"

Pepper snarls, "'WE'?! What kind of videos need to be watched at 3 in the morning?! Natasha? Tell me, do you have a hangover?! Were you drinking too?! Clint?! Do I need to scold you as well about how damaging that is to your liver...!"

"I can concur," Thor interrupts.

"Not now," Pepper snaps

Natasha smiles sarcastically and rotates to face the group, "I was not drinking but I can assure you, 'mom', if I wanted to intentionally spend time with your boss for the fun of it, I'd need to be completely wasted five times."

Clint just shrugs with a mumble as he glances toward Banner who does the same, "I don't know what happened with you all but we had a good night."

Bruce nods in agreement, "Pretty good."