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"Excuse me, sir. Ma'am."
Steve adjusts his sunglasses, uses his nose to nudge the umbrella out of the way and takes another sip of his piña colada. "Yes?"
"It's just..." The young man hovers over him, shifting from foot to foot. "You really shouldn't block the, the aisle like this. The... chairs could be a fire hazard."
Steve shares a glance with Natasha, then they both take in their position in the middle of the gym, the empty elliptical machines behind them, the free weights before them.
"Place cleared out already," Natasha says. Her lawn chair is mint green and way more comfortable looking than the plastic rainbow weave digging in to Steve's back end, which he's sure she damn well knows and damn well planned.
"Mostly," she amends, and they both return their focus to the scene in front of them.
Bucky, his shirt lifted halfway up his torso, is counting aloud as he points to his abs. "Five. Six."
Sam's shirt is all the way off, discarded and draped haphazardly on the weights shelf. He's flexing his chest, pretending it's completely on accident his pecs are dancing a jig. "And seven beats six," he says slowly, as if to a kindergartner.
"That one doesn't count." Bucky points vaguely towards Sam's pelvis-area. "That's way too low. That's something else. That's something you should talk to your doctor about."
"Excuse me," the young man—he's wearing a blue polo with the gym's logo on it—says again. He leans over Natasha and Steve like a scolding mother and stage whispers, "We really only allow liquids with resealable lids in here, and alcoholic beverages are strictly forbidden."
Steve fishes in the front pocket of his jeans, pulls out his Avengers Assemble ID card, and flashes it at the beleaguered employee. "Stark said we could have the run of the place for a while."
"Of course he did." With a long-suffering sigh, the fella throws his hands in the air and storms off, muttering, "I went to college, for God's sake."
Natasha sips loudly at her mai tai. "This is good," she says. She holds out her cup—really, it's a hollowed out pineapple—and offers him a sip.
"Very nice," he agrees. Experiencing modern tropical drinks was one of the more interesting things to happen to him after he woke up in the future. They don't get him drunk, but the sugar burns a little brighter through his system than straight hooch, and most of them are disgustingly delicious.
Across from them, Bucky's got his shirt full off and a bottle of mineral oil out, rubbing it into the joints of his metal arm.
"Man, put that away, you smell like a diaper," Sam says.
Bucky glares at him—assessing, plotting—then squirts a long line of oil across Sam's chest. The top end of the stream clips his jaw, leaving a shining drip that Sam wipes away with the back of his hand.
"Why you greasy, long-haired son of a—"
"Hey now," Natasha warns.
"—gun."
"Hey now," Steve echoes, without nearly as much feeling as intended, seeing as how his indignation glands have been smothered by other, more powerful hormones, now that Bucky and Sam are writhing around on the floor together, wrestling for control of the bottle and spurting more shiny streams out of it and onto themselves in the process.
Their bare chests gleam and their fingers slide over the now-slick plastic.
"Don't you even think about biting me, Barnes, 'cause I will pull your hair, don't think I won't."
"I'm so scared. Your seven-pack is so intimidating up close."
"Ha! So you concede!"
Bucky pulls him into a headlock that Steve can tell is more playful than purposeful, especially since he's using his right arm. "Stop squirming, you big fish."
"Stop hitting yourself," Sam counters, taking hold of the metal arm and thwacking it against Bucky's thigh.
Natasha angles her chin at Steve, just slightly. "We sure know how to pick 'em, don't we, Rogers." She takes another sip of her drink, looking as satisfied as a cat in the sun.
"Sure do," Steve says around his straw, then holds up his hand for a high-five, which Natasha meets with distracted enthusiasm.