Chapter Text
"I really don't know." Steve frowned, looking at the flier. It was a very simple flier, and he had read it at least ten times over already, but he read it again. "It just isn't me."
"Didn't we agree that we need to push our comfort zone?" Tony spread his arms, giving Steve that smirk that Steve was never sure how seriously to take.
"Sure, but the idea is to push our comfort zone in a way that grows us. I'm not sure that this will," Steve frowned, turning it in his hands again, "grow me."
"Come on, Steve." Tony sat down across from him, pushing back from the table with his feet to tip the chair back on the rear two legs. "You haven't been on a date since you've thawed out, have you? Live a little!"
"Much as I hate to agree with Tony," Nat added, arms crossed, "you've really thrown yourself into the superhero work. I don't know if hanging around with us all of the time is the healthiest thing. You need to interact with..." her eyes flickered from Tony to Sam to the kitchenette, where Hulk was painstakingly assembling a massive sandwich, "normal people."
"Hey!" Sam replied, wounded, putting the soldering iron aside. "I'm normal!"
"Yeah, normal people fly around the skies of New York in a high-tech exoskeleton," Nat said.
"I just don't know how... this whole dating thing works!" Steve sighed, putting the flier down. A gathering of men and women in one room, and they... just paired off with each other? It felt so forced, so superficial!
"It's easy, Cap!" Tony ticked off the points on his fingers. "You're in a room with a lot of women. You rank them by your personal preference, then go up to them in that order and ask them out. I mean," Tony shrugged, "it all basically follows a Gale-Shapley algorithm. I could account for indifference, but," he laughed, "I really don't believe in that..." He paused. Everyone was giving him that look. "What?"
"I don't know what that means," Steve replied, "but that sounds kinda... gross." In a very Tony way. Stripping the humanity out, reducing everything down to 0s and 1s.
"Gross?" Tony actually looked wounded. "It's just math!"
"That's exactly what I mean. Why just me, though? Why don't you come with me? You haven't been on a date in all the time I've known you, have you?" Despite his self-cultivated billionaire playboy image. Interesting, that.
"I don't have to," Tony noted, leaning back on his folded arms, "they come after me."
"Bad strategy," Hulk growled, stomping over with the sandwich in hand. "Initiator optimal." He took a massive bite. Ever since the de-Hulking, Steve thought, Bruce and Hulk had gotten integrated to a disconcerting degree. Hearing the Hulk talk like that would never not be disconcerting - or delightful.
And it actually disconcerted Tony enough to make him frown, tipping his chair back a little past the balance point and having to recover. "Well, it's just not a priority for me."
"Why not, big guy?" Nat asked, slyly. Sam was looking at him expectantly, too, and Steve was grateful to see the attention turned away from him, and onto a very deserving target.
Tony slammed his chair back down on all four legs. "Look, you're all getting very far afield from the important point, here, which is getting Steve to go on a date. We'll all talk him up, make sure he looks all Captained up, I got him a suit, he promises not to come home until he's actually talked to a girl and gotten her phone number - yeah?"
Steve stared at Tony. "You got me a suit?" he asked, bewildered.