In Your Eyes // Steve Rogers

15

With time growing closer to midnight, the crowd started to thin out. By eleven on the dot, the last duo invited had left, shouting a drunken wave to the Avengers, who were lounging on the couches on top of the platform.

Natasha and Bruce took up part of one couch, talking together; Maria and Helen Cho were giggling beside each other; Tony and James Rhodes, or Rhodey, as I learned to call him, sat arguing about tech of the Iron Man suits; Thor and Steve were on the couch I sat against, their conversation unknown to me, since I was too caught up in my own.

Clint Barton and I were sitting on the floor opposite of each other, our feet stretched underneath the coffee table, entranced in a conversation about the Chinese food we ordered.

"Sweet and sour sauce for the win, man, I'm telling you," I argued, stabbing a chopstick through a piece of chicken and dipping it into the sauce beside me.

"Wrong," disagreed Barton, flipping a pair of drumstick around his fingers, "Soy sauce is the real luxury."

"Old man, please," I teased.

"Old man? You want to talk about old men?" asked Barton. He stopped flipping the drumstick and pointed behind me, presumably at Steve. "You're dating one, kid."

I rolled my eyes. I finished off the chicken and set the empty box on the table, placing the sauce beside it. My hand bumped into the hammer, expectedly, it didn't budge.

"It's a trick," muttered Barton.

I glanced at him, following his gaze to the hammer. I shook my head. A party trick wasn't all the hammer could be reduced to.

"'Who shall ever be he worthy shall haveth the power,' whatever, man, it's a trick!" he mocked.

My giggling at Barton's terrible impression of Thor's voice caught the attention of everyone. Their conversations ceased, focused on ours.

"Be my guest," offered Thor.

Barton looked to him. Thor held out his hand in the hammer's direction, tempting him to give it a try. Barton's drumsticks clattered on the coffee table as he stood.

"Clint, you've had a tough week, we won't hold it against you if you can't get it up," said Tony.

Barton, one handed, gripped the handle. "I've seen this before," he told the team. He pulled. He strained. "But I still don't know how you do it," he chuckled.

"Smell the silent judgement?" asked Tony.

"Please, Stark, be my guest," said Barton, irritated, while he sat back down.

Tony raised his eyebrow cockily. He stood, releasing a button on his jacket.

"I'm never one to shrink from an honest challenge. It's physics," he claimed. While wrapping his hand through the band, he asked, "So, if I lift it, do I get to rule Asgard?"

"Yes, of course," agreed Thor.

"I will be reinstituting Prima Nocta," announced Tony.

The joke went over their heads, leaving them to look at me for clarification, being the only person to give a quiet chuckle.

"In the past, it was rights used by nobles that said they could have sexual intercourse with the wife of a man newly married on the night of their wedding," I explained.

An awkward pause occurred. I took a long chug of my beer to look busy. I learned the pause was because of me. Tony hadn't touched the hammer, because his eyes were on me.

"How do you even know that?" he asked.

"I was supposed to be a history teacher," I muttered shyly.