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Clint, Pietro, Steve, and Bucky were sitting around the kitchen table eating breakfast when Tony burst in with an armful of magazines.
“Well, lovebirds, it’s official,” he announced. “Your relationship has landed you on the cover of every trashy tabloid in America.”
He dumped the magazines on the table and Clint groaned. There were at least a dozen pictures of him and Pietro on those magazine covers, each with a tacky – and not necessarily flattering – caption. Pietro picked up one of the magazines and pouted.
“They called me a twink,” he said.
“Relax, kid, you’re too old to be a twink,” said Tony.
Steve snorted, sipping his coffee to hide his smirk.
“Don’t worry, guys, it’ll pass,” said Bucky. “They called Steve and I much worse things when we came out, and now we’re on like three ‘best celebrity couples’ polls.”
“We are?” said Steve.
“Yeah, it’s weird, right?”
“What did they call you?” Pietro asked.
“A lot of people called me a traitor,” said Steve.
“I kept the one that said ‘National Icon: Tarnished’,” said Bucky. “We framed it.”
“I see your ‘traitor’ and raise you a ‘pervert’,” Clint said, scowling at a particularly trashy magazine.
“They really are playing up the age difference thing, aren’t they?” said Tony.
“Seems like they think Pietro’s younger than he is,” Steve said. He took the magazine from Clint to see what it said. “Yeah, they’re definitely acting like he’s some innocent young boy and Clint’s a cradle-robbing creep....”
“I don’t know why they’re making such a big deal about your age gap,” said Bucky. “It never bothered you guys.”
Pietro laughed sarcastically.
“Oh really? Why do you think it took us so long to get together?”
“I just assumed you were both pining obliviously.”
“Not everyone is you and Steve,” said Pietro. “No, it took us so long because Clint was convinced he was too old for me. I lost track of how many times I had to tell him I didn’t care about that before I finally got through to him.”
Just then, Wanda and Natasha came into the kitchen.
“What’s with all the magazines?” Natasha asked.
“Barton and Maximoff became tabloid whores overnight,” Tony explained.
Natasha picked up one of the magazines and Wanda peered over her shoulder to read it.
“They do realize Pietro’s an adult, right?” said Wanda with a distasteful frown.
“Apparently not,” Clint grumbled.
“Come on, babe, you heard what Bucky said. It’ll pass,” said Pietro, taking his hand. “In a couple months they’ll be calling us America’s Sweethearts.”
“Hey now, that’s our title,” Steve teased.
“You might wanna keep your thing with Vision under wraps for a while, Wanda,” said Tony. “They’re acting like this over a fifteen year age gap, who knows how they’ll react to a human-android romance...”
“We don’t... I haven’t got a thing with Vision,” said Wanda defensively.
The others all gave her a look.
“Riiiiight,” said Bucky. “And Steve and I are just best friends.”
“Anyway,” said Pietro, steering the conversation away from his sister. “What do we do about this stuff?”
“Nothing,” Tony replied. “You can’t stop the paps from being dicks. You guys are Avengers, you’re in the public eye, so they’re gonna drag their version of your private lives around until they get bored. All you can do is keep doing your thing and learn to ignore it. Even the nasty stuff. You hear that, Barton?”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Clint. “And for your information, Stark, it’s only a twelve year age gap. Just so we’re clear.”