Avengers The Unexpected Side Effects of Fondue

**Author's Note:** Believe it or not, this is an assignment I wrote for school. For a grade. Yep. I get extra credit if I post it, so here we are! Profs. D &amp; DBC are the best in the history of ever. Also, this marks my first published foray into the world of NOT spn fic! Hope you enjoy!

PS I rated it T because it's actually really chill, but there _is_ a lot of mention of sex (non-explicit) and some coarse language. you're all big boys and girls, though, so you'll be fine :P

* * *

The first time Tony accidentally lifted a car, he blamed it on the adrenaline rush. His suit was busted in pieces on the sidewalk, the others were all preoccupied finishing off the Doombots, and there was a man being slowly crushed to death underneath an overturned car. Out of desperation, Tony had grabbed the front bumper bare-handed and heaved. The car was just a Prius, but it still shouldn't have flipped over twice before smashing into the side of a building twenty feet away.

"Holy shit!" Tony stared at his hands, then at the car, then at the man he had just saved. The guy stared back at him for half a second, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted. Tony kind of felt like doing the same.

"Tony?" He turned to see Steve hurrying over, looking concerned. "Are you all right? I saw that Doombot take you out." Cap's eyes fell to the remains of the Iron Man suit, and he frowned. "Is that fixable?" Tony gave a slightly high-pitched chuckle, and Steve's frown deepened. "Tony? What's wrong?"

Tony quickly reviewed his options. Tell Cap now and risk a total panic and all sorts of experiments, or hold off. It was probably just a freak accident anyway, right? Yeah. "Nothing," he answered brightly, flashing Cap his trademark grin and wiggling his eyebrows. "I'm just tired. What do you say we call it an early night and get a little fondue before bed?"

Steve flushed scarlet, but before he could answer Clint spoke up from behind Tony. "Oh, man, I would totally be down for some fondue. The chocolate kind, right? Cause cheese should never ever be liquid unless it's Cheese-Wiz." After a moment's consideration, he added, "or nacho cheese."

"Sounds good to me," Natasha answered, and Tony turned to find the rest of the Avengers approaching in various states of injury and exhaustion.

Cringing inwardly, Tony summoned up another bright smile. "So, three blocks down from that shawarma place we went to last time we saved the city, there's this restaurant called the Melting Pot..."

}A{

Two weeks passed without incident, and Tony was glad he hadn't told anyone. The morning after the car incident he had casually tried to pick up the sofa, just as a test, but it didn't budge. He eventually got his fondue with Steve, which was awesome, and all was right with the world again. Then the second incident happened.

It was a slow day for the Avengers; Captain America was off being the guest of honor at some comic convention in California for the next two days, and for once there were no world-threatening calamities happening. Bruce was doing Zen yoga on the roof, Natasha and Clint were fighting or flirting or something like that in one of the practice rooms, and Thor was meeting Jane for lunch. Tony was in his garage tweaking the newest incarnation of his suit, and DUM-E had just accidentally knocked a wrench Tony needed under the blue Porsche.

"If you do this again, I'm donating you to a children's museum," Tony threatened, getting on all fours to peer under the car. "And it's going to be one of those de-construction exhibits where they let the kids come at you with power tools." The wrench was in the worst possible spot, dead center under the transmission, and Tony couldn't quite reach it. He wiggled under the car on his stomach, arc reactor scraping the concrete through his shirt. Fingers just brushing the wrench, Tony reached a little bit farther, and something sharp sticking out of the bottom of the car poked him in the back.

"Ah!" Tony yelped, instinctively twisting away. His right shoulder dipped down, his left one went up, and suddenly the Porsche was two wheels on the floor with most of its weight resting squarely on Tony's back. DUM-E made a concerned whirring noise at Tony, which he ignored in favor of carefully reaching forward and retrieving the now easily accessible wrench. Equally calmly, he lowered the car back down and wriggled out from under it.

"Are you all right, sir?" Jarvis asked. "Monitors indicate an elevated heart rate and brainwave patterns characteristic of mental stress."

"Yeah," Tony muttered, dropping the wrench on the workbench and flexing his fingers thoughtfully. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"But sir, your physiological symptoms indicate—"

"Jarvis, shut up for a minute, okay?" Walking back to the Porsche, Tony hesitated for a moment, then squatted and got a firm grip on the bumper of the car. He lifted, and the front wheels left the ground with almost comic ease. Tony put his back into it, straining, and slowly the car rose to one tire, then no tires. For a whole three seconds Tony stood there, holding an entire Porsche in the air with his bare hands. Then he dropped it with a crash and sat down hard.

"Sir, I really think—" Jarvis began, but Tony cut him off.

"I have super strength. That's so cool, oh my god." Bounding to his feet, Tony grabbed a screwdriver off the table and whipped it at the far wall of the garage, a good forty feet away. The tool spun across the room and buried itself handle-first in the wall, punching a hole in the plaster. "Did you see that?" Tony laughed giddily. "I mean, of course you did, you're in charge of all the security cameras, but. This is awesome!"

"What's awesome?" Tony spun to see Clint standing at the door to the stairs, eyeing him warily. "I swear, if you've built another robotic death machine, Banner will kill you. He almost hulked out the last time one of your suits walked into the room without you in it."

"It's not another remote controlled armor, no. Although if I was to make Jarvis a mobile unit of his own... now there's an interesting experiment..." Tony scrabbled around on his desk for scrap paper and a pen and jotted down the idea. All the while, his mind was racing. He had super strength, and maybe other powers, he wasn't sure. Telling the rest of the team, especially Fury, would be the responsible thing to do. He wasn't sure why they had manifested, though, another part of him argued. So he should probably wait until he figured that out before sharing the news. No point in telling the others when he didn't know the whole story.

Mind made up, Tony turned back to Clint, intending to give some bullshit story about a technological breakthrough, and saw Clint staring suspiciously at the screwdriver embedded in the wall.

"What did you do, Stark?"

"Um. Hydraulics malfunction?" Tony blurted. Clint raised an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, I was tweaking the stabilizers and one of them accidentally went off and blew the screwdriver across the room." Clint looked like he was going to argue, so Tony changed the subject quickly. "I have the parts for those EMP arrows you wanted to make, by the way. Was that why you came down here?"

"Hell yes!" Clint crowed, completely sidetracked. "Although actually I was hoping you had some leftover motor oil lying around here somewhere. I'm making a Molotov arrow."

Tony blinked. "You're making—no, you know what, I don't want to know. Oil's in the third drawer of the cabinet to the left of the door. Just don't burn down the tower or I'm going to tell Bruce about that time you and Widow got freaky in his favorite armchair."

Clint gaped at him. "How did you even—security cameras? Low blow, Stark. Low. Blow." The archer collected his materials and departed, but not without giving Tony another dirty look. Tony waited a few seconds to let him get out of earshot.

"Jarvis, how fast can we get a blood sample analyzed?"

"It would depend, Sir. S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists on standby to assist the Avengers could have them analyzed as early as—"

"No, not Shield. I want to keep this quiet for now. Get me a private analyst, one who I can trust. Or, actually, one who'll take good money to not say a word about this to anyone."

There was a moment's pause as Jarvis processed the request, and then he responded, "The closest doctor that fits your criteria would be Dr. Banner, Sir."

"Don't be a wiseass, Jarvis."

"Of course not, Sir. There is a serologist, Dr. Phillip Gregg, who owns a practice approximately half a mile south of Avengers Tower at—"

"That'll work; just send the address to my phone."

"Shall I inform the team of your errand, Sir?"

"Oh god, no. If anyone asks, I'm hiding from Pepper and her mountain of paperwork."

"Very good, Sir."

Confident that Jarvis could take care of the place while he was gone, Tony got into his least recognizable custom sports car and headed off to get some blood work done.

}A{

Five hours later, Tony was pacing around his bedroom in a state of mild panic, cell phone to his ear. A quick glance to his watch showed that it was eight thirty, which meant it was only five thirty on the west coast where Steve was. The convention hadn't even begun to wind down yet, probably. The line rang so many times that Tony started to hope it would go to voicemail, but then there was a click and a rush of background noise.

"Tony? What's going on; is there a mission?" Steve sounded tired, and for half a second Tony considered not telling him, or just waiting until he came back. But Steve, of all people, deserved to know. Especially if there was even a chance that someone else might find out and tell him first.

"Nope, no mission. What, I can't call you except on business?" Tony joked lightly. He could practically hear Steve's raised eyebrow through the phone. "Okay, okay. Um. So remember back in June when we were fighting those Doombots and you asked me what was wrong?"

"Yes," Steve answered instantly, and Tony tried very hard not to find his near-perfect memory attractive. Now was not the time.

"Yeah, so, it turns out that there actually /was/ something. I just thought it was nothing, so I didn't bother to tell you, but this morning it turned into something again, so-"

"Tony," Steve interrupted, concern darkening his tone. "Calm down and tell me what happened."

"Calm down? I'm totally calm, Steve. One hundred percent. I am ice cool, which is kind of ironic because I'm pretty sure that ice resistance is now also a thing I have."

"Tony, what the hell—"

"I got superpowers from fondueing with you!" Tony blurted. There was dead silence from the other end of the line. Whoops. Tony had enough time to beat his head against the wall three times before Steve spoke again, sounding slightly dazed.

"Come again?"

"No, you probably shouldn't, that might make it worse." Shit. "I mean. Look, that time we were fighting the Doombots and my suit was broken, I rolled a car across the street barehanded. And then the next day I tried to move the sofa, but I couldn't, so I figured it was just the heat of the moment or something.

"But then this morning I kind of accidentally lifted a car again and so I did some blood work to figure out what was wrong and the results came back and they kind of matched your blood samples that we have on file. And so I was trying to figure out how I got your super soldier powers and then I realized that we had sex two days before the Doombot incident and then didn't have sex for like a week and then had it three times in one week and for two hours the night you left for the convention and then I picked up a whole Porsche."

If Tony had thought Steve's first silence was deafening, it was nothing compared to this. The other man was quiet for so long that Tony had to take the phone away from his ear twice to make sure the call hadn't been dropped.

"Are... are you telling me that my jizz is radioactive?"

"What? No, of course not, that's ridiculous. I'm saying that your jizz has transmissible superpowers. Probably something to do with the DNA content of the sperm and the unquantified reactive powers of the super soldier serum. And they're apparently only temporary, although probably prolonged exposure would cause permanence."

Another long pause. "You do realize that this means we can never have sex again."

"Are you kidding?" Tony demanded, shocked straight from panic into outrage. "First of all, you could just wear a condom like a normal guy who doesn't want to get spunk everywhere, and second of all, why can't I just keep my superpowers?"

"We're not talking about this right now," Steve answered firmly. "I'm flying home as soon as I can get the plane ready. Did you tell the others?"

"Of course not; give me _some_ credit, Steve. I do have a small sense of self preservation."

"Uh-huh." Steve sounded like he was still half waiting for Tony to tell him it was all some weird joke. "Well. I'll be back soon. Don't do anything stupid."

"Hey, come on, this is me we're talking about!" Tony protested, and Steve snorted into the phone. "But before you go, let me just say this. If I keep my super strength, the sex is going to be even more phenomenal than it has been. Just saying."

"Good _bye_, Tony!" Steve snapped, and hung up. Tony couldn't quite tell if the words had been angry or excited, but he was hoping for the latter.

}A{

"Why are you all out here?" Tony snapped. He'd really wanted to talk to Steve about this before the rest of them found out, so of course they were all sitting in the living room five minutes before he was supposed to walk through the door. Steve had a terrible poker face; if they saw him right when he came back, they'd almost definitely know something was up. At least Clint wasn't here. Although, knowing Clint, that was probably a bad sign.

"What, we can't sit in your own living room on a Sunday night?" Natasha asked sweetly, tossing her hair over her shoulder. Tony scowled at her.

"Look, Steve is coming back soon and I have something kind of personal to discuss with him. So if you all wouldn't mind finding somewhere else to congregate for the next hour or so..."

"Ooh, did you hear that, boys? It's personal." Natasha wiggled her eyebrows at Thor and Bruce. The both chuckled, and Tony got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Maybe Steve's poker face, or lack of, would be too little too late for this secret.

His suspicions were confirmed when Bruce gave him a shit-eating grin and casually asked, "Is it about that car trouble you were having this morning?"

Tony blinked, trying not to look as horrified as he felt. How had they found out? "Oh my god. Get out."

"Be not vexed, Anthony!" Thor boomed, and Tony cringed. "Your relationship with Steven is cause for celebration, not shame!"

"Yeah," Bruce added, still smiling like the goddamn Cheshire cat. "It's not that bad; you could have ended up turning into a giant green rage monster in the afterglow or something."

"Or a crazy, red-faced space Nazi," Natasha added. "Oh god, do you make him do it in costume?"

Steve chose that moment to walk through the door, still in his suit, helmet-hair making him look like he'd just rolled out of bed. The room exploded with laughter, which only got worse as Steve looked from Tony to the others and slowly turned bright red.

"You said you weren't going to tell them, Tony!"

"I didn't, I swear! They all found out somehow!" Tony took a step towards Steve, hands outstretched placatingly. "Look, let's just—" a bright pink arrow with a magnet on the end shot through the open window and slammed into Tony's chest, knocking the wind out of him and sticking to the rim of the arc reactor. Steve whirled and brought up his shield just in time for a second pink arrow, this one with a suction cup, to attach itself to the dead center of the star.

"Cupid's in the house, bitches!" Clint yelled, swinging through the window on a grappling hook. He was wearing heart-shaped sunglasses and a ridiculous pair of feathery black and pink wings, and he looked horrendously proud of himself. "I fucking _told_ you they were fucking!" Everyone dissolved into hysterical giggling again, and even though he knew he was in a shit ton of trouble, Tony couldn't quite smother his grin at the part outraged, part pleading, part appalled look Steve was giving him.

_Screw it,_ he thought. _If Steve hasn't killed me by now_... Plucking the arrow off his chest and the one off the shield, Tony chucked them both at Clint and then grabbed Steve's hand defiantly, giving Bruce a wicked grin of his own. "Okay, sure, we're fondueing. But at least we haven't done it in your armchair like Clint and Natasha!" With that, Tony made a break for the hall, taking advantage of his newfound super strength to drag a surprised, confused, and mortified Steve with him. Behind him, he heard Bruce's disgusted cry, Natasha's cursing, and Thor's booming chuckles. Then he heard a roar, the sound of ripping cloth, and Clint's terrified yelps. Whoops.

He was about to turn back around when Steve suddenly took the lead, pulling Tony down the hall instead. "Thor's there; they'll be fine," he said, still blushing furiously. Despite that, Tony noticed that he was wearing a tiny, mischievous smile. "Right now, you and I need to discuss this situation. Possibly over some fondue."


End file.

Avengers, Humor, Romance