Pre-birthday/pre-camp dinner
Tony wasn’t sure who was more excited, the avengers or the kids.
Cooper brought the kids over as soon as he was finished at the community center.
Don, Ian, and Charlie would be over a bit later.
Steve and Clint were playing some variant of tag with Brianna and Isaac that might have rules that were transmitted through telepathy, but they were having fun.
Natasha joined in and….so did the Hulk, well Tony could always re-landscape.
Cooper hung out watching, quiet.
Tony acquired a licorice soda from the drink fridge positioned near the back door to keep drinks cold close to the patio and brought it to him.
Cooper accepted it with that shy smile and Tony grinned.
Okay. It was good. He was doing good. The avengers were happy. They weren’t as sad and lonely and disconnected as they had been. And Cooper was happy too. Also good. Sometimes it was hard to tell with the guy.
Charlie and Ian arrived, with…possibly a sampling of the best desserts Ian could concoct in a 48 hour period…well. Appetites were pretty big here, so they’d manage. Tony directed where to put the offerings. Charlie at least had the grace to look a little sheepish about the amount of desserts, Ian just looked….determined.
Maybe this was an attempt to determine favorite desserts of the collected super heroes in case any of them dropped in on Cooper and he wasn’t going to be caught flat footed again.
Yeah…that seemed feasible.
Charlie was collected by Isaac to be on his and Brianna’s team and Tony wasn’t entirely certain how there were teams here….maybe they weren’t playing tag?
Ian joined Tony and Cooper. “What are they playing?”
Cooper shrugged. “No idea, but I think if you get tagged fifteen times you develop an unspecified super power that lets you sit on the shoulders of someone on the opposite team for five minutes and if they get tagged during that time period they lose the ability to move without someone on their team moving them….which might be why no one is tagging the hulk because I don’t think he can ride on anyone’s shoulders.”
Ian blinked. “What?”
Cooper took a drink. “I meant it when I said I have no idea, SG. Those just appear to be the rules.”
Tony laughed and gave Ian a mustard flavored soda.
Ian, unwisely, did not check the label until after he opened the bottle and took a drink. Cooper startled at Ian’s facial expression and moved out of Ian’s arms reach…just in case.
“Whut? Whut is this abomination of flavor?”
Cooper hid a chuckle under a cough, as the SG was not doing a very good job of hiding an annoyed southern drawl there.
Clint lost some points, Cooper was pretty sure, because he dropped to the grass and started laughing. “Ugh, did Tony get you with the mustard one or is it the butter flavored one?”
Cooper looked concerned. “Did you find stranger flavors than last time?”
Tony nodded, grinning. “Oh yeah. Everyone’s been trying to out do each other on weird sodas for weeks now. Natasha filled the entire fridge with communist themed sodas and then Clint found ones with nearly every flavor of carnival foods, Bruce brought home a whole mess of herbal flavored ones…and then one flavored like grass….you probably would like the herbal ones…except the grass, that one was super weird. Steve tricked me with a barf flavored soda…but I probably deserved it….”
Ian side eyed Tony, but also made certain to not accept a beverage from Captain America for the rest of the evening, just in case.
Don joined them within the hour and foods were put on the grill to cook, while Don checked the label of the bottle Tony had handed him, since Cooper loved him enough to send him a warning text in response to his letting Cooper know he was on his way.
They ate and talked, and ate some more, everyone becoming fully acquainted. Bruce returning to the conversation half way through dinner. Tony tossed him a sarong. Bruce gratefully and quickly tied that around his waist.
Steve surveyed the table and his teammates and their friends. Their found family…this was good.
Clint was going over the ASL signs for something mathematical with Isaac.
Bruce was discussing something with Charlie, that Steve was pretty sure, he’d never understand.
Tony was discussing cookie recipes with Ian.
Don and Brianna were listening to Natasha tell a story from one of her SHIELD missions.
Cooper, quietly observing everyone, taking it in, but not separated from everything around him.
Sort’ve like Steve was, making sure everything was good.
And it was….though possibly everyone ate far too much dessert.
Except Cooper, because he wasn’t too fond of things that were overly sweet. Steve was pretty sure he should have followed Cooper’s lead on the dessert buffet front…but everything was so good…
Ian was smugly pleased.