Chapter Text
With each successive year, the Avengers pumpkin-carving contests had gotten increasingly competitive. Tony supposed he should have seen it coming, really, given the imbalance between their team members’ fine motor skills (literally lethal) and their sense of reasonable perspective (practically incompatible with civilian life). Sure, Thor’s attention usually wandered fairly early in the game, from scooping out seeds to refilling everyone’s beer (the man was a hopeless sucker for pumpkin stout). But Steve was an artist, Bruce worked with delicate lab equipment all day, Clint could bulls-eye a gourd from the length of a football field, and Natasha was like a Renaissance sculptor with a blade.
This year, however, Tony was going to win.
“You built a neural network that analyzes squash,” Bruce said flatly, “and you attached it to a laser.”
“I know, right?” Tony grinned, setting his new bot on the kitchen table triumphantly. “It scans the pumpkin wall for structural integrity and irregularities in surface texture, and then it matches the results against a database of classic and contemporary art.”
“That’s cheating,” Clint protested, waving the arrow he’d just been using to pick off the marshmallows he’d lined up across the kitchen island. “We put electricity on the ‘forbidden items’ list after Thor fried half our pumpkins into a pulp trying to carve his with Mjolnir.”
“My apologies again, friends,” Thor beamed at them, tipping an extra pour of New Holland Ichabod into Bruce’s glass. “But the resulting explosion was quite spectacular.”
“Luckily, Barton, little HALL-O here is solar-powered,” Tony said, patting the bot, which swiveled one if its laser-equipped arms toward him in response. “So you can all suck it, because tonight I’m going to be drinking the sweet apple cider of victory.”
Clint gave him the finger, and Natasha rolled her eyes. But Steve hummed non-committally in a way that sent off an instant warning bell in Tony’s mind.
“What, Captain Sure-of-Himself, you think you can out-carve a laser trained on the joint collections of the Louvre, the Whitney, and the Shanghai Museum?” Tony asked his boyfriend, eyes narrowing at the smug little twist of Steve’s lips.
“Oh no, Tony,” Steve said seriously, already slicing precise lines down his pumpkin’s surface. “I’m sure I couldn’t possibly create anything as elaborate as that.”
“Then why,” Tony gritted out, “are you smirking?”
“Let’s just say I think I’ve got a shot at the popular vote,” Steve replied affably. And then the bastard winked.
Well, that was absolutely not going to stand. Years earlier, when he and Steve had first started dating, Tony might have succumbed to his weak spot for Steve’s sassy moods. But he had spent weeks preparing for this coup. He whirled back toward his pumpkin, muttering to himself as he got HALL-O set up to go. He ignored the sly looks Natasha was casting his way every time she peeked over at Steve’s pumpkin. He didn’t even acknowledge Thor’s attempts to push a glass of beer his way: Thor’s strategy had become increasingly dependent on getting other people drunk, and Tony was not going to allow any distractions to come between him and the prize (a cardboard crown that read Burger Pumpkin King).
By the time everyone had finished, Tony was already bouncing impatiently on the balls of his feet, a perfect rendering of Caravaggio’s “The Calling of Saint Matthew” etched into his pumpkin.
“All right, losers,” Tony said. “Let’s see the runners up.”
Bruce had carved a meteor shower illuminated with candlelight; Natasha a delicately abstract series of flickering ballerinas; Clint a flock of birds that seemed to wink in and out of flight as the candle guttered; and Thor a somewhat lumpy Jane (again).
Steve held his pumpkin back for last, frowning at it theatrically.
“I don’t know, Tony,” he muttered, his brows knitted together. “I tried my best.”
“Will you just pony up, Rogers?” Tony growled, biting the side of his cheek to keep back the grin that threatened to take over his face whenever Steve put on his “aww shucks” act.
“Why don’t we let you two work this out while we get the movies ready for later?” Natasha said, standing up and giving Thor a firm pat on the shoulder.
“But I want to see!” Clint whined, and Natasha pinched him on the suprascapular nerve. “Oh fuck, Nat! Fine! Jesus. But this means we’re watching Corpse Bride!”
“Steve,” Tony said, as the other Avengers filed out of the kitchen. “Why are our friends leaving us alone with the pumpkins?”
Some actual nervousness seemed to have seeped into Steve’s demeanor. His shoulders had bunched closer to his ears, and his hands were hovering near the sides of his pumpkin. Finally he took a deep breath.
“Tell me what you think, Tony,” he said, and he turned the jack-o-lantern toward him.
In the corner were the cartoony outlines of Iron Man carrying a shield-wielding Captain America. The level of detail was probably pretty impressive, but Tony didn’t notice any of it, because in the center of the pumpkin – in soft, sloping letters – Steve had carved, “will you marry me?”
“Shit,” Tony swore, eyes darting to the spot where Steve had started to sink to one knee. Steve looked up at him with a small, hopeful smile, and Tony reached out to grab his hands and press Steve’s knuckles to his lips. Tony’s hands were shaking, but so were Steve’s, and the smile on Steve’s face was brightening as he held Tony’s eyes.
“You win.”