"How about we wait for Kae and Bruce?" Elaine suggested.

Bruce held up his hands.

"That's all on Tony," he said. "You know how he can get."

"Nah, they'll be around in a bit," Tony said, waving off her concern. "We can start without them."

Kae sighed and rubbed her temples. "I am going to shoot my cousin. Preferably in the leg. Maybe multiple times." She moved over to the door and jiggled it. "Okay, JARVIS, prank's over. Let us out."

"Nope," Elaine said stubbornly. "I'm guessing you don't quite get how Christmas works with more than two people. We don't start without everyone."

"I do apologize, Miss King," JARVIS responded, "by my orders were explicit. I am not to let you out until you and Doctor Banner have, quote, 'kissed, made out, banged, or whatever shy people call it.' Sir was very clear on that."

"They'll be a while," Tony said with a knowing, smug smile. "Come on, we can at least have some snacks."

Clint perked up at that word and darted into the kitchen to snatch a croissant before Stark changed his mind and said the kitchen was off-limits again.

Kae started at the nearest camera for a moment before she flamed red and buried her face in her hands.

"I am so, so sorry Bruce."

Elaine sighed for a moment.

"JARVIS, where are they?" she asked.

"Don't be," Bruce replied. "It's Tony's fault." He hesitated for a moment. "And it's not exactly the worst situation I've ever been in, to be honest."

"Miss King and Dr. Banner are currently in a storage room on the floor below," JARVIS answered. It was the truth, but not the whole truth. Tony was so proud of his AI.

"...Okay, yeah, I guess not, huh. Hey, at least I don't have a gun," Kae offered with a weak smile. She was still blushing, though.

"Let me see," Elaine said. Loopholes; she was familiar with them.

"Trust me, there's worse," Bruce said. He forced himself to keep breathing evenly and stay relaxed. Confined spaces with very squishy human company were not ideal rooms for the Hulk.

"Do you really have to?" Tony asked with a sigh. "Really, they're fine. JARVIS is keeping an eye on them to make sure." And because JARVIS knew better than to give Elaine the video feed (since it would likely piss her off) he didn't.

Kae nodded, watching him for a few moments. "JARVIS, how far exactly do Tony's orders go? What kind of flexibility do we have here?" She did put a hand on Bruce's arm, absently rubbing away some of the stress she felt there.

"Tony..." Elaine gave him a Look. "Bad Stark, no snacks for you."

"I have repeated my orders exactly as Sir gave them to me, Miss King," JARVIS replied.

Bruce relaxed marginally when he felt Kae's hand on his arm.

"What?" Tony asked with a shit-eating grin. "Really, they're fine, they'll be fine, no harm done, stop freaking out."

Kae nodded, still rubbing Bruce's arm almost without thinking about it. "Okay. Kiss, make out, bang or whatever shy people call it. Close enough to his orders. There's an 'or' in there, JARVIS. Technically we can kiss and be done with it, right?"

"No details specified," JARVIS replied dutifully. Not a 'yes'... but not a 'no,' either.

"Tony, sometimes you're far too flippant," Elaine said with a sigh, settling in next to Steve.

"Huh. Okay." Kae considered that carefully, turning it over in her mind for several moments. "Hey, it would be enough for a lawyer to work with, and you're smarter than half of them, so how about it we do that and call it even and we can go on our merry ways?"

Tony looked at her for a moment before he snorted and went to go get a snack, snagging some baked good and flopping over on a couch.

"My orders were quite specific, Miss King," JARVIS said.

Kae huffed. "Yeah, but Tony left a loophole. Surely you see the wisdom in taking advantage of a loophole. Especially in a situation such as this."

"Kae," Bruce interrupted, "I think JARVIS is hinting that the bare minimum will get us out of here." That's what it sounded like to him, at least.

"Alright. Works for me." Kae looked at him. "If this were anywhere else in the room, I'd say we could just bust out of here somehow, but I doubt that's going to work. Not here." She sighed briefly, though she didn't pull her hand back.

"I am going to kill my cousin when we get out of here. With his own Christmas present."

"I'll hold him down for you," Bruce muttered.

Kae grinned at him. "I'll let you take a turn at him too," she teased with a grin.

Then she fidgeted, looking up at him. "So. Shall we?"

"I'm not sure we have a choice," Bruce replied. He looked at her, and then glanced briefly at the hand on his arm. He didn't move her hand, however.

Kae, of course, misread the glance and pulled her hand back, biting her lower lip.

"Sorry," she said quietly. "You just seemed tense."

"No, no, it's alright," Bruce replied. "It... didn't bother me at all, actually."

"...Oh." Kae looked at him before she hesitantly touched the back of his hand. Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she leaned up and kissed him once quickly before retreating.

Bruce is almost unprepared for the brief kiss, and it was over quickly. Almost as soon as it was, the lock on the door clicked open.

Embarrassed as hell and mortified beyond reasoning (especially since if she was being really honest she had maybe had a few fantasies about doing that), Kae fled the room, heading straight up to the main room.

Just the knowing smirk on Tony's face made her turn even more red, and she snatched up the nearest gun (which did happen to be Tony's) and pinged him right between the eyes. And then right on the Arc reactor. And then in the divot of his collarbone. Tony yelped and dove for cover.

Steve sighed, not sure he should even bother trying to make Kae stop, when he heard Elaine's phone go off. He blinked.

Elaine was biting her lip to keep from laughing, and was mercifully distracted when her phone went off. Even if she didn't see the display, she knew that ringtone.

"Director, it's Christmas," she said as she answered the phone. "What is it?"