Chapter Nine
Tony quickly shut his phone after his last text to Bruce and went back to what he was supposed to be doing. ALENRTS. What the heck was he supposed to do with that to make him beat Steve? Nothing. Or...
"Antlers." Tony had a smug grin on his face as he placed his letters. "The 's' adds to your 'o'," He nodded to his mother. "To make the word 'fools'. Plus the triple word score on the 's' and using all my letters is..." He did some quick math. "Ninty-six points. Take that, Steve, I'm beating you by thirty points."
"Yeah, whatever." Steve looked at his letters quickly and then took four of them out.
"Size. 'Z' put on the triple letter score makes a total of thirty-three points." He smiled. "A hundred and forty-five points. Give up now while you still have some of your pride intact." Steve joked.
"Not in a million years."
"Tony dear, it's getting late, perhaps you should walk Steve home. You both beat me and Howard by quite a bit, and that's our third game." Maria said rather tiredly.
"Mom, really? We're tied right now and I'm not letting Steve win without a fight." Tony stared intently at the Scrabble board, waiting for his father to move.
"Maria and I are finished, Tony. You and Steve can finish the game, but make sure he gets home before it's too late." Howard took his and Maria's letters and dumped them back into the letter bag before walking upstairs.
"Good night Steve, thank you for joining us." Maria said.
"Thanks for inviting me." Steve had just drawn new tiles and he was absorbed in sorting them. Tony was too. Maria just sighed and went upstairs.
"Now hurry up and lose." Steve grinned.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Three hours later, Maria decided to go downstairs and make sure Steve was home.
"Tony, are you still awake?" She asked as she walked downstairs.
"Yeah, Steve's gone." Tony said from the coffee table in their living room, where he was sitting and doing nothing.
"Alright. Now go to bed." Maria ordered.
"Okay." Tony sat quietly until his mother went back upstairs. "She's gone." Steve walked out of the kitchen.
"Why am I still here again?" He asked.
"Because I'll be bored without anyone to talk to." Tony stated.
"Right. My brain's pretty much fried, so no more Scrabble." Steve said.
"Why not? I'll easily beat you now." Tony shrugged.
"Exactly why I'm refusing to play. I'm enjoying my winning streak." Steve answered and sat next to Tony, settling nicely into the couch.
"I have an idea." Tony left to his basement and returned moments later with a big stack of paper.
"What's that for?" Steve raised an eyebrow.
"Start folding." Tony said with no more explanation, as he began folding numerous paper airplanes quickly.
"Uh, okay then." Steve started folding his own.
Fifteen minutes and sixty sheets of paper later, Steve and Tony both had armies of thirty one paper airplanes each.
"What exactly are we doing with these?" Steve asked, still looking rather amused.
"We're having a paper airplane war." Tony said with a serious look on his face.
"What is it?"
Tony had a look of mock-horror on his face. "Really Rogers, I can't *believe* that you've never had a paper airplane war."
"Are they that popular?" Steve asked.
"With me they are," Tony grinned. "I perfected the aerodynamics of my planes, and I always win."
"We'll see about that."
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
An hour later, the battlefields had been cleaned and the winner announced. Much to Steve's dismay, it was Tony. Of course, Steve had demanded a rematch, but you could only throw so many pieces of paper before your wrists turned to useless gelatin.
"So, what do you want to do now?" Steve asked and poked a stray airplane that hadn't gotten thrown away.
"I invented that game, you know." Tony said thoughtfully.
"On the spot or a while ago?" Steve had actually expected that much.
"When I was little, my dad and I used to play it, before he got all annoying." Tony answered.
"Oh." Steve replied. "I guess we could just, you know, sit here." He suggested.
"Why not." Tony shrugged and sat next to him, ignoring the gay thoughts that were climbing back up from the crevice of his mind that he'd thrown them in.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
At precisely 9 AM on Saturday, October 17th, Peggy Carter could be found standing outside the Stark mansion and knocking on the door to no end. Her reason? Steve was there, or he was missing, and Steve Rogers was not stupid, therefore he was fine and at the Starks.
Peggy paced the porch before seeing the strawberry-blonde girl she'd seen talking to Tony Stark, probably his girlfriend, walk up to the door before turning to her.
"Aren't you Steve Rogers' old girlfriend, Peggy Carter?" The girl asked. "I'm Pepper Potts. This is my boyfriend's house. I'm curious as to why you're here." Pepper stated.
"Because this is where Steve is." Peggy answered.
"What?" Pepper furrowed her eyebrows before running around the side of the house and coming back with a key that she used to unlock the door.
"Do I want to ask?" Peggy muttered.
"No. Tony likes to lock himself out of his house, I've seen where he gets the key." Pepper opened the door quietly.
"Wait, what are we doing? This is creepy slash borderline stalker behavior." Peggy backed away.
"Believe me, Tony doesn't mind, I've asked. He lets me in whenever I want." Pepper reassured and entered the house.
"It's your fault if we get thrown out." Peggy said.
The two girls looked around the seemingly empty living room before hearing something from the couch.
Pepper motioned for them to be quiet and they walked to the couch and looked at it with surprise.
Tony and Steve were asleep on the couch, in a completely adorable way. They were *cuddling*. Steve's arms were around Tony's waist and his head was resting on Tony's shoulder. Tony was buried into the side of the couch, but he had an expression of contentment on his face.
"What the..." Peggy said with a look of shock and Pepper just looked hurt. Plain undisguised hurt.
"I don't believe him." She moved towards them but Peggy held her back.
"Don't." She looked hurt too.
"Tony isn't gay! Steve did this!" Pepper accused in a whisper-yell.
"Don't you dare blame Steve! He isn't even gay, we were dating back home!" Peggy hissed back.
"Fine, then what do we do?" Pepper asked.
"We'll just keep them away from each other," Peggy suggested. "If we can keep them interested in us, they won't end up like this again."
"Fine." Pepper agreed. "We should go before they wake up."
The two girls cast one last disdainful glance to the couple asleep on the couch before exiting the house, relocking the door, and putting the key away. They exited the premises and went their separate ways, planning how they'd regain the attention of their respective boyfriends.
-/-/-/-/-/-/
Only about fifteen minutes later, Steve's cellphone rang. It broke both boys out of their peaceful sleep.
They awoke with a start and fell off of the couch onto the floor. Tony was now on top of Steve and their faces were inches apart.
The ringing continued, and they both got up and sat back on the couch.
"Uh, sorry about that." Steve said nervously.
"About what? The uh, cuddling or falling asleep on my couch?" Tony said.
"Both." Steve muttered.
"No harm done, it's fine." Tony shrugged, although he could actually feel his cheeks getting warm, which was more embarrassing than whatever was making them do that.
The ringing stopped, and next thing they knew, Maria and Howard were both coming down the stairs.
"Steve? Tony? What are you doing?" Maria asked.
"I was just hanging out down here and Steve came back because he left his cellphone here." Tony lied smoothly.
"Nice to know it wasn't a burglar." His father muttered. "I'm going to sleep in, thank you very much." He barely gave a glance to his son and returned upstairs.
"I'm going to get dressed." Maria stood for a moment and stared at the boys like she knew something before she returned to the master bedroom.
"You should uh, probably go." Tony said.
"Of course, um, thanks for having me over. So what, are we friends now?" He asked.
"Yeah, I guess we are." Tony replied.
"Okay then." Steve grabbed his phone off of the coffee table and quickly slid on his navy blue Converse before unlocking the door. He looked ready to leave, but he walked back over to Tony and leaned closer. They both closed their eyes and...
"Tony, what do you want for breakfast?" Maria was standing on the staircase and watching them. Both boys swiveled to look at her.
Steve looked mortified. "Bye Tony." He rushed out the door
Tony looked around the room, but not at his mother. "Waffles?"
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Steve glanced at his cell phone's screen. "One missed call from Peggy Carter." It read. He flipped it open and dialed Natasha.
"Hey Nat, can you come over to my house in thirty minutes?"
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Steve changed into some new clothes and went downstairs to his living room. He sat there, thinking, until he heard a knock on the door.
"Nat, we need to-" He opened the door and was greeted by Peggy.
"Hi Steve." She said, smiling.
"Peggy, hey." He said back.
"I was wondering if you wanted to go see a movie or something." She offered. "My treat."
"Yeah, why don't we go this afternoon?" Steve said quickly.
"Wonderful!" She exclaimed. "I'll come get you at three thirty." Peggy looked happy as she left, but not before planting a short kiss on Steve's lips.
The lips that were supposed to kiss Tony earlier.
Steve shut the door and waited for Natasha, trying to clear his head.
Natasha barged into the house.
"How'd it go with the Starks last night and why couldn't Peggy find you at eight o'clock?" She asked breathlessly.
"Come in." Steve let her in and closed the door. "Want some water or something?" He offered, trying to prolong talking about last night.
"No, I want to know how your little 'date' went." Natasha persisted.
"It went pretty well. Dinner was good, I really hit it off with his parents. We went back to his house and played three games of Scrabble, two games of chess, and had a paper airplane war." He listed with a small smile on his face.
"A what war?"
"Tony invented it." He replied.
"Okay then. What else?" She continued.
"Uh, nothing." Steve looked out the window.
"Steve, seriously, you're a really *bad* liar." She stated.
"We uh, slept together-"
"YOU DID *WHAT*?" Natasha screeched.
"No! No, no, no, that's not what I meant! Actually fell asleep together on his couch." Steve added quickly.
"Oh, okay. You did *what*?" She repeated.
"And somewhere in the night we ended up cuddling..." He continued slowly.
Natasha had an unreadable expression on her face.
"And then this morning, right before I left, I tried to kiss him." Steve finished.
"Did it work?" Natasha rose an eyebrow.
"No, his uh, his mother interrupted." Steve replied.
"His *mother*? Wow. This is just... Wow." She sat silently for a few moments. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to eat breakfast and get ready for my date with Peggy this afternoon after I take a nap." Steve said tiredly.
"Need a hug?" Natasha offered.
"Yeah, I could use one."
Natasha wrapped her arms around him and held him tight before letting him go and patting him on the back. "Want an omelet?"
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
"Thanks Mom." Tony said as she put the plate of waffles in front of him on the table.
"Anything you want to tell me?" She asked gently.
"Nope." He said through a mouthful of waffle.
"Don't talk with your mouth full." She reprimanded.
They sat in silence for a few moments.
"I know that Steve didn't go home last night."
Tony choked a little bit. "Oh, right. Yeah, we stayed up and played a few games." He shrugged like it was no big deal.
"Did one of those games involve cuddling?"
"Okay, how did you know?" Tony said, giving up.
"Trust me, Tony, a mother knows these things. The cuddling part was a guess. Kissing would've been my first guess, but you being with Pepper and all made that less likely, cuddling usually just happens." She said.
"Whatever." He kept eating.
"He was going to kiss you." She said. "And you were going to kiss him too."
He chewed silently.
"I saw you flirting with him at dinner. Do you have a crush on him?" She continued.
"I- yeah. I do." Tony admitted.
"Well, it's fine that you do. No matter what anyone says, it's fine." Maria said in a motherly tone. She was mainly thinking of Howard right now, and she could almost see his reaction.
"Thanks Mom." He said, truly grateful.
"Besides, you two make a cute couple." She teased.
"Mom." He rolled his eyes.
"I won't interfere, I promise." She smiled at him.
"Well, I'm still with Pepper." His face fell somewhat.
"Who do you like more?" She asked.
"I don't know. I really don't." He went back to his waffles and Maria left the room.
His phone rang.
"Pepper, hi!" He said with forced enthusiasm.
"How do you feel about going to see a movie this afternoon?"