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Sometimes a little friendly competition breaks out at the Avengers Tower, but surprisingly enough, it doesn’t often get too wild and crazy between the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
But sometimes it does, like right now.
Pepper and Tony are sitting in the backseat of his Rolls Royce as Happy drives them back to the tower from Pepper’s latest doctor’s appointment.
She’s somewhat slumped against Tony, and her eyes are closed as if she’s trying to sleep. Tony’s right arm is around her shoulders while his left hand rests on her growing baby bump.
Everything went great at Pepper’s appointment and Tony has never been more relieved in his life. He’s never been one to handle major changes well without plenty of time to adjust to them, and he’s finding that with each passing day there are more and more major changes happening with Pepper and their unborn baby, and that? That’s downright terrifying.
But they’ve made it to the halfway mark, which has to count for something, or at least that’s what Tony keeps telling himself. If he can manage to handle twenty weeks of changes, he can handle another twenty more. Plus, he kind of likes all of the changes Pepper’s experiencing because luckily for him, she loves to include him in everything. It’s almost like he can experience it all right along with her.
He learned a lot while they were at her appointment too. Baby Stark (Pepper is still refusing to let him call their little nugget “The Iron Baby”) is now the size of a banana and they have taste buds, which completely fascinates Tony because… science.
Tony is lost in thought for several moments, and when he looks down again, it seems like Pepper might’ve managed to fall asleep and he doesn’t dare try and reach in the pocket of his suit jacket for his phone that has continuously gone off for the last five minutes with an abundance of text messages that he can only assume are from the other Avengers who are waiting not so patiently back at the Tower. He knows what they want, he knows what little game they’re up to, but he promised Pepper he wouldn’t look at the contents of the little white envelope that’s peeking out of the top of her purse.
If this were any other thing, Tony would’ve looked in the envelope the moment Pepper fell asleep, but this is important to Pepper and he’s not about to screw this up. He screws enough things up on his own without purposely trying to, thank you very much.
“Dropping you off out front or taking you around the back, boss?” Happy asks as they near the Tower.
“Garage, Happy. Thanks,” he tells him, not raising his voice much above a whisper as to not wake Pepper.
She’s been avoiding going out in public unless it’s absolutely necessary, which has, of course, fueled rumors across the media. But she can deal with that. What she can’t deal with is twice as many cameras in her face as usual, trying to get the perfect shot of the pregnant Stark Industries CEO.
She and Tony decided they would keep the news to themselves for as long as possible, and now that she’s really starting to show, that time of keeping their little secret all to themselves is severely limited. So Tony’s going to do everything he can to make the last few weeks without making an official announcement to the press special, just for Pepper.
“Pepper, honey? We’re home,” Tony says as he presses a kiss to the top of her head. She grumbles, so Tony knows she’s awake and heard him, but she doesn’t move from her spot or even attempt to open her eyes.
“I swear, you get more and more stubborn with each passing day,” he teases once Pepper finally sits up. “Why are you so tired today anyway? All of the baby books say this is when you’re supposed to have a ton of energy.”
“Didn’t sleep well,” she grumbles as she gets out of the car, closing the door with a hip bump while she readjusts the envelope in her bag so it’s no longer showing. “I’m going to go back inside and sleep for another hour or so, I think.”
Tony steps up behind Pepper, a hand on her lower back, and ushers her inside as another barrage of text messages comes through on his phone.
“I’ve got some updates to do to the suits,” he tells her. “So if you need anything, just have FRIDAY call down to the workshop and I’ll be right up.”
They exchange a quick kiss before Pepper heads off in the direction of their bedroom and Tony in the direction of his workshop. He stops half way down the stairs when his phone goes off again and retrieves it from his pocket, not surprised to see he has 68 unread text messages from the Avengers group text.
He scans through them quickly as he finishes making his way downstairs, most of the messages being nothing but one large argument between everyone as they try to guess whether or not Pepper is having a boy or a girl. Personally, Tony thinks she’s having a girl, which is wonderful. He wouldn’t be upset if they ended up with a little boy though. But the idea of having a little Pepper running around is one that Tony can’t help but obsess over just a little, so he’s kind of holding out hope. But really, it doesn’t matter what they end up having, just as long as the baby is healthy. It might sound like a bit of a cliché to say such a thing, but Tony is still so worried that something may go wrong that all he really does want is a happy, healthy baby who is a perfect combination of his and Pepper’s genes.
Tony types out a quick reply to the group, letting them know he and Pepper are home and that everything went well. He makes no mention, however, as to whether or not they found out whether they’re having a boy or a girl. He immediately regrets it though because almost everyone sends him a message within seconds of each other.
[NATASHA:] Boy or girl?
[BUCKY:] I say girl. It’s a girl, right?
[CLINT:] Nah, it’s a boy.
[RHODEY:] C’mon Tony. Tell us what the doc said.
[BRUCE:] Betty says girl.
[STEVE:] I also say girl.
[PETER:] Nah, it’s a boy for sure.
[NATASHA:] Seriously Stark. Boy or girl?!
[NATASHA:] We’ve been waiting for weeks! Are you going to tell us or not?!
Tony sighs down at his phone that’s slowly buzzing across his workbench where he’d left it as he pulls up a 3D hologram of his latest suit, giving it a quick spin with the flick of his fingers. Knowing they’re not going to stop with the questions, he sends another reply for those that are lurking around the tower to meet him down in his workshop because he has work to do and it’ll just be easier to talk face-to-face instead of stopping every two seconds to read fifteen text messages.
He hasn’t even gotten half way into the code he’s working on rewriting when the door to the workshop opens, followed by a small line of eager looking Avengers. Tony’s hand is already in the air, a silent way of asking them to give him another second while he finishes the line of code he’s working on, and the moment he drops his hand and turns in his chair to face them, everyone starts talking at once.
“Listen, listen!” he manages to get out, both of his hands held up. “Everything went great today, thanks for asking. Oh, Pepper’s fine, she’s upstairs taking a nap because she’s fucking exhausted.” Tony gives all of them a pointed look, not bothering to hide the slight annoyance he’s feeling with their ridiculous need to know whether or not they’re having a boy or a girl.
“Sorry, Tony. We got a little carried away,” Nat relents, giving him her best apologetic smile. “We’re glad everything went well today, we’re just excited for the both of you.”
Tony scrubs a hand over his face and lets out a heavy sigh. “Yeah, I know. I appreciate all of you being so excited for us. And to answer the question you’ve all been wondering about––we did find out what we’re having but––.”
The rest of Tony’s sentence is cut off by everyone else talking all at once and he’s pretty sure Clint said something to Natasha about her owing him money soon.
“Woah, let me finish, guys.” Tony takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “Pepper wants to be surprised too, so while we technically found out what we’re having, the doctor didn’t tell us. She just wrote it down on a piece of paper and put it in a sealed envelope that we brought home with us.”
“Come on, man,” Clint whines. “We really wanted to know.”
“I know, so did I. But what Pepper wants, Pepper gets. Who am I to argue with the lady? She wants to have one of those gender reveal party thingys—yes, technical term, I know—and she’s thinking about having one in a couple of weeks.”
Steve looks between Natasha who’s standing on his left and Sam who’s standing on his right, and gives them a shrug.
“I’m okay with waiting,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. “The longer we have to wait, the higher the stakes become which means a higher payout for me because I’m telling you, she’s having a girl.”
“Well that’s where you’re wrong, Rogers. It’s a boy,” Clint tells him, and Tony rubs his temples because sometimes dealing with everyone is enough to drive him to drink.
Tony stops rubbing his temples and looks up, a suspicious expression on his face, and snaps his fingers a couple of times to get Steve and Clint’s attention who are still arguing over whether or not Pepper is having a boy or a girl.
“Wait, Rogers, what do you mean ‘a higher payout’ for you?”
Steve pales for a second and looks to Natasha as if he’s about to murder her right there on the spot.
“Nat, you didn’t tell him?”
“Hey, tell me what?” Tony hates being out of the loop on most things and this is even worse because it involves his unborn kid.
“Well, Nat was supposed to tell you but she didn’t,” Steve says, shooting the woman another glare. “But you know how we all decided to take guesses on whether or not Pepper’s having a boy or girl?”
Tony nods, not liking the direction he thinks this explanation is headed.
“Well, we kind of got… bored, y’know, waiting, so we decided to make it a little more interesting and involve money. So the longer we have to wait, the higher the odds become. Nat has a whole chart breakdown on her phone, actually.”
Oh dear God. Pepper is going to absolutely murder Tony for letting this happen, he can feel it, and he hasn’t even told her yet. He makes a mental note to not bring it up until he’s sure she’s in a good mood because if there is one thing he’s learned these past few months, it’s that hell hath no fury like a pissed off pregnant woman.
“I don’t think I want to know, but I have to ask anyway. If we would’ve come home and told you guys what we’re having, how much money would you end up collecting?”
Natasha pulls out her phone and immediately starts tapping at the screen until she finds exactly what she’s looking for and clears her throat.
“If you told us today and if it was a boy, those of us who were right would end up with $878 and eleven cents. If it was a girl, it would be $1,213 and 54 cents a person. Most of us say it’s a boy, hence the large difference between payouts.”
Tony closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in through his nose.
Friendly competition his ass. This is some serious gambling––on his child, no less!
Tony decides right then and there that he’s not going to tell Pepper about any of this.
“You said the payout gets higher with each day we don’t tell you?”
“That’s right,” Steve confirms.
“Well,” Tony says, pausing for a moment as he considers the people in front of him. “I like those odds. I want in on this––I say we’re having a girl.”