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When Steve comes into the kitchen, Bruce is whistling to himself by the stove. Steve can smell frying, and something sweet.
The specific identity of whatever he's making is hidden, blocked by Bruce's body and extra blocked by Clint, who's draped over Bruce and apparently doing his best to make sure it's burned to a crisp. Bruce, being Bruce, is doing an excellent job of ignoring everything unrelated to the job at hand.
Natasha is at the table, frowning at a crossword. She looks up when Steve comes to stand by her. He smiles down and she raises an eyebrow, flicking a look at the going-ons at the stove and rolling her eyes. Steve's smile widens.
"Good morning," he says, hand at her nape and eyes moving to the crossword, and he's a little surprised (because he's always a little surprised) when Natasha's hand comes up to his hip, her arm loose around him, her head leaning against his side for a moment.
"Good morning," she says, straightening again to nod at Bruce and Clint. "Barton is trying to ruin breakfast."
"I'm not ruining anything," Clint protests, not looking back from where he's nibbling on Bruce's ear. Or something. "This is my breakfast."
"Technically, this is Thor's breakfast," Bruce says. He shakes Clint off a little, enough to turn away from the stove and smile at Steve.
Bruce's best smiles have this magical thing to them that never fails to make Steve feel -- warmer, better, closer. Something. He tamps down the urge to wave like a dork and goes over instead, leaning down to claim a kiss before he pulls away.
This morning, Natasha tastes minty-fresh and Bruce tastes like he's been sampling his cooking and Clint tastes like he's been stealing some samples too, or maybe like he's been sampling Bruce. Steve settles against the counter and smiles at the floor a little. It's been a while since they had a morning like this, slow weekend without any emergencies, everyone present soon, maybe, or as soon as one of them goes to drag Tony away from his latest project.
"Thor," Clint is telling Bruce, who's still ignoring both the extra weight and the wandering hands -- Bruce's skills never fail to amaze Steve; he's been on the receiving end of those hands, this is no easy task -- "Thor is the guy who secretly wants to marry a strawberry pop tart. Are you seriously telling me he'd rather have some crazy thing you found on the internet than pancakes? Who doesn't love pancakes?"
Steve refocuses on the sizzling pan on the stove. Bruce is just in the process of adding in one of his mysterious spices, all in little bags that are either unmarked or marked in his own handwriting, which is to say, completely illegible. Steve sometimes suspects it's intentional.
"When you come back from a long trip to another planet, I'll make you pancakes," Bruce tells Clint. But Steve can see that his head tilt is hiding a smile, and Clint's own smile says he knows perfectly well that what this means is maybe tomorrow.
"I came back from three weeks in an undisclosed location last week," Natasha points out mildly from the table. "You don't actually know that it wasn't another planet."
Steve laughs. Bruce's ducked head isn't quick enough this time; Clint catches the smile, his own grin widening. "That's right," he says. "Nat deserves pancakes. Don't play favorites, Banner."
"Actually," Natasha says, "I think I'm in favor of the mystery breakfast," and Clint goes so far as to fully detach himself from Bruce so he can turn around and give her the most betrayed look Steve has ever seen.
Natasha laughs.
"An illustrious morning to all!" Thor booms from the doorway. Bruce gives a satisfied-looking nod and lowers the flame. "I must tell you, I cannot identify this smell, exactly, but it's amazingly alike that of an Asgardian delicacy I have not had in many years."
"Ten bucks," Natasha says.
"The internet doesn't know Asgardian cooking," Clint says.
"Ten bucks," Natasha says. "Welcome back, Thor."
When Steve looks back she's kissing him, very thoroughly by the looks of it, Thor's hands holding her up by her hips like she weighs nothing at all. He has, of course, held Steve up in the exact same way before; the only difference is that Natasha doesn't really need the help.
It goes on for a while, during which the three of them mostly just stand around watching, because there are some things you pretty much have to do that for. Then Natasha lets Thor put her down again, though he follows her on the way there, and when they break apart they both grin at the spectators. Natasha takes a small bow.
"Big guy," Clint says, "I'll do a lot more than making out if you can just --"
"No undue influence," Natasha warns.
"The internet doesn't know Asgardian cooking."
"You should have more faith," Natasha says. "Also, you shouldn't have taken that bet."
Thor quirks an eyebrow, but he's learned long ago that mysterious earthling behaviors shouldn't be placed too high on his priority list. He steps around the table and comes towards where the three of them are still clustered in the cooking area.
"Good morning," Thor says, smiling. "I have missed you all a great deal during my absence."
The thing is, Thor doesn't need to hold Steve up for kissing purposes. Other things, sure, but kissing, the height difference isn't nearly enough.
Still, Steve can't really say he minds.
"What's up?" someone says from the doorway. Steve thinks, vaguely, it might be Tony. He's also fairly sure his legs are around Thor's hips, which is completely ridiculous. Thor hums approval into his mouth and Steve decides to care later.
"There are no pancakes for breakfast," Clint says, "And now Steve's hogging the Asgardian."
"And Clint is down ten bucks," Natasha says, "for not believing in Bruce and the internet."
"Also, you're just in time for breakfast," Bruce adds, closer by. "Clint, get plates. Thor, put Steve down."
Tony's fantastic timing doesn't hold up in the face of the fact that Thor takes reunions very seriously, even when they involve five different people, and that once he tastes the dish he also takes showing his gratitude very seriously. Thankfully, Asgardian delicacies seem to taste just as good when they've cooled off a bit, and Bruce's hair nearly always looks that way anyway.
For a while, there's relative silence, broken by the sounds of cutlery against plates, Thor's pornographic food sounds, and a very slow but fairly heated argument about Maria Hill's views on timely mission reports.
"I can't believe you didn't trust the internet, Barton," Tony says, slumped against Clint's side. His hair looks almost as amazing as Bruce's, but to be fair, it was that way when he came in.
"I can't believe you didn't sleep again, Stark," Clint says. His hand is absently rubbing Tony's shoulder, thumb repeatedly pressing against a knot Steve is more than well-acquainted with. Clint has archer hands, and can sometimes actually work it out; the super soldier serum has a less than one in ten success rate.
"I was building Thor a welcome home gift," Tony says.
"You were building a new gadget for the suit," Steve points out.
"Thor loves the suit," Tony says. "It absolutely counts."
Steve snorts and shakes his head, leaning back in his chair and looking around.
The sun is bright through the windows up here in this halfway-to-the-sky floor, and Bruce is talking with his hands at the other side of the table while Natasha listens, nodding along. His plate still has two mouthfuls of mysterious Asgardian breakfast on it, and Tony's feet have somehow snuck their way into Steve's lap and magically ended up with Steve's hands wrapped around his ankles. It's a good morning, all in all.