The Bet
“If you want advice on how to deal with Tony just know that at all times Tony Stark is just like a cat,” Sam says, “he wants attention all the time, but only if it’s the exact attention he wants otherwise he will bite you. He hates being cold so he will cuddle, but only on his own terms, try and keep him there and he will bite. Tony also likes to do whatever he wants and if you tell him no he’ll start knocking shit off tables while looking you dead in the eye to establish dominance, spray bottles will not correct this behavior. The trick is to always make it seem like it’s his idea, I learned from Pepper,” Sam tells them. Coulson, ever the overachiever, is taking notes, probably because he wants to impress Clint by getting along with everyone. So far he was mostly succeeding given that Wanda had yet to toss him into a wall, which was better than Tony, who had been pushed into two separate door frames that day alone.
Everyone else had taken Sam’s bet that they couldn’t get Tony to like them and so far the only three with even the slightest chances of winning based off actual personalities were Bucky, Thor, and if Tony got over his anxiety around Steve him too. Bobbi, Sam suspected, would win simply because she could get anyone anywhere to trust her in seconds of meeting her. It was why she was so good, and also fun to work with. “Do not, under any circumstance, no matter how dumb his idea is, tell him that he can’t do the thing because he will do the thing if you tell him it’s stupid. For example when we were in the process of making my wings he decided it was a good idea to test them by jumping off the top of SI. Naturally I tell him that’s a god damn dumb idea and you know what he does? Looks me dead in the eye and jumps over the edge and he refused to admit he did something dumb because the wings worked. You know how white people have no sense of self-preservation? Tony is the king of white people with no self-preservation,” he says, “like Steve, Bucky this should be a breeze for you. They’re basically the same person.”
Steve looks offended, “I would not jump off a building to prove I’m right,” he says, “that’s just needlessly reckless.”
“Damn right,” Bucky says, nodding approvingly and looking fiercely protective over his friend.
“Okay but if I did I’d be fine,” Steve says, proving Sam right unintentionally.
“You will not go jumping off buildings for any reason,” Bucky says, offended that Steve would even suggest such a thing.
Steve, as expected, gives Bucky a stubborn look, “I’d be fine,” he says, “because I’m not an idiot who takes needless risks.”
Bucky looks flabbergasted, “Steve jumping off a building is a needless risk,” he says.
Steve wasn’t going to admit this any time soon though so the two continue to argue about jumping off buildings, “Tony’s a lot like Steve, very stubborn, except anyone telling him his idea is dumb will get this reaction,” Sam says, pointing at Steve and Bucky, who were still arguing.
*
Tony was irritated with the number of people who seemed to think it was appropriate to harass him. He swore they all thought he was a moron, Lance told him about the bet as soon as Sam made it and even though Tony wasn’t an idiot, he knew Lance told him so he’d win the bet, he still liked Lance better. He was debating on whether or not he was going to fuck with them all for funsies. Unfortunately for him he wasn’t good at this sort of thing, people weren’t his forte, he didn’t play well with others and so he decided it was a good idea to go to someone who was good with this stuff.
Loki opens the door, looking harassed, and almost slams the door in Tony’s face but Tony’s reflexes have gotten faster since Natasha started regularly kicking his ass in the name of ‘teaching’ him to fight. “Want to fuck with the alphas?” he asks. This, as expected, intrigues Loki enough that he opens the door and looks Tony up and down, appraising him like he was a bug under a microscope. Tony was more than familiar with this form of intimidation having dealt with it since, well, birth considering this was always how his father and literally every other business partner had. It was one of the reasons Loki had been attracted to him to begin with, he hadn’t folded under Loki’s frosty glare and instead he had challenged him. Too bad Tony didn’t know Loki and Elsa were twins or he would have just slept with Loki like a normal person and taken off rather than getting attached and ending up with a frozen heart that Loki wasn’t fixing anytime soon.
“Speak,” Loki says, having deemed the situation worthy of his time.
Tony rolls his eyes and remains silent long enough to push his way into Loki’s room, irritating Loki further by doing so. Good. “The alphas have made bets on who ends up my best friend first, Lance has won but none of them know that and I figured you’d be happy to fuck with them,” he says. Loki’s room was a mess, which largely indicated that he was feeling as chaotic as his surroundings. Loki’s space said far more about him than he ever would about himself and he knew it, which was why he was such a private person. He didn’t like the idea of people being able to read his moods through his space, the same way Tony didn’t though Tony’s space being clean meant that Tony was in a particularly chaotic mood. He and clean didn’t get along, not in the lab, things everywhere meant his ideas were flowing, that things were going well, if things were put away he was stuck and typically in a bad mood because of he was stuck.
Loki considers his words, “what’s the point of trying to get you to like them, I’m sure they all have better things to do than gain your approval,” Loki says scathingly.
“The fuck if I know, ask Sam, he was the one who made the bet,” Tony says irritably, already regretting his decision to team up with Loki to fuck with people. He should have just let it be but no, he had to go get ideas and then try and follow through on them. He was a moron.
Loki sighs, looking pinched, “how did we end up like this?” he asks.
Tony isn’t feeling very charitable so he decides to go for the throat, “we got here because you can’t handle basic truths about your own feelings being pointed out to you,” he says bluntly.
“Oh as if you’re any more open minded,” Loki snaps, apparently losing any motivation he had to be polite.
“I fully recognize that I’m an emotionally stunted asshole,” Tony says flippantly.
This only serves to irritate Loki more, “out,” he snaps, pointing to the door.
Tony rolls his eyes and walks out, “later, Elsa,” he says and slams the door just before whatever Loki threw at his head actually connected.
*
He wasn’t sure who, exactly, thought that it was a good idea to drag him into a ‘training’ session when he was clearly pissed off but he was cursing whoever it was now because this was the third time Natasha has slammed him into a mat and he was more pissed off than he started. And Natasha was a shit teacher, she kept swearing at him in Russian and telling him to learn, which was annoying because if that was possible he’d go ahead and do that. He figured his inability to pick up on how to fight would have nicely conveyed his obvious lack of talent in the area but no, Natasha insisted on kicking his ass at least twice a week in the name of ‘learning’, which was a term he used loosely because he never learned anything. Well, that was a lie, he learned that Natasha made a shit teacher, and that he really didn’t like being out of his suit in a fight, and that he was terribly underqualified for spy work.
“Tony,” Natasha says, sounding as frustrated as Tony felt, “would you pay attention and learn, damnit?” she snaps, obviously just as annoyed with the current situation as he was. It hadn’t helped that a small crowd gathered to watch and Tony never had been fond of failing let alone in front of a crowd and Natasha was just growing more and more annoyed with his inability to pick up on her moves.
“Right,” he snaps, “as if I haven’t been paying attention to my ass getting handed to me for the last forty minutes, yeah okay,” he says and rolls his eyes. If he was anyone else he suspected Nat would have punched him in the face but they had a weird understanding in these situations given that they both got frustrated in five seconds or less whenever Nat decided this was a good plan. Thankfully Nat decides not to punch him for rolling his eyes, not that it would do much more than make him roll his eyes again.
Natasha sighs heavily, “just… pay attention,” she tells him like this time was going to be different than the other seventy times she’s told him to do that. He was paying attention but he didn’t get it and nothing Natasha was doing was helping.
“You aren’t teaching him right,” Steve, Tony knew because his damn voice was tinged with a Command which was annoying however unintentional, says.
Natasha’s eyebrows shoot up and she fixes Steve with a look that would make lesser people run for the hills, “oh really? Fine then, you teach him,” she says, “it isn’t as if he’ll listen to you, well, unless you force him to,” she mumbles under her breath but it’s loud enough that everyone hears it and crinches, including Steve to his credit.
He doesn’t appear to be daunted though and he steps up to Tony as Natasha walks away, “alright, I’m going to assume you know quite a bit about human anatomy, yeah?” he asks and Tony glares at him.
“I have a very good working knowledge of anatomy yes, biology isn’t why I’m shit at throwing a punch,” he snaps.
“Actually your punching skills are just fine,” Steve tells him, “it’s your ability to land the punch that’s the problem. Now, you obviously know how code works, how each new thing in the code predicts how the rest will work or stop working, yes?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at Tony.
Tony rolls his eyes again, “you’re seriously asking me, a tech genius, if I know how code works? Obviously I know how fucking code works, I’ve literally generated entirely new forms of code for half my tech.”
Steve, to his credit, only looks minorly irritated with Tony’s outburst and he recovers quick, “there’s a method to my madness, think you can hang on a minute to see where I’m going with it?” Steve asks with far more patience than Tony probably deserved.
He sighs, “fine then,” he says, “go on.” He probably would have been nicer but he didn’t feel like it, he was having a bad day and besides it wasn’t like he was being a total asshole, he was just being a bit of an ass.
“Great. Well human bodies work similarly to machines, all the parts you’d use in a fight are essential to making the whole of the fight continue, you start taking things out, breaking things, bruising things the body starts to react like a malfunctioning machine. Only unlike a malfunctioning machine you want to make the problem worse, and if you have knowledge of anatomy you should be able to do that just fine. Now move with me,” Steve says and Tony doesn’t get a chance to ask what the hell that meant before Steve steps forward and he takes a step back automatically.
Steve takes another step forward, but he moves to Tony’s left and Tony side steps away again, making sure his back isn’t to Steve and he’s out of Steve’s reach. They do this for a few minutes before Tony realizes he’s on the defensive and fuck that, he never has been the type to back away from a fight so when Steve takes a step forward he does too, putting them almost chest to chest and he glares up at Steve. He realizes that he probably looks like an angry puppy but he didn’t particularly care at the moment.
Steve doesn’t step away but Tony hadn’t expected him to, instead he stares down at Tony, appraising him. “See, you have no problem reading body language at all, you accurately predicted where I was going and moved away as you saw appropriate and when you decided you were becoming overly predictably you broke pattern and stepped forward instead of back. You clearly have what you need to learn to fight, you just don’t know how to translate theory to practice very well,” he says and steps back.
Tony frowns because he hadn’t considered those things and even if he had he wouldn’t have thought he was any good at them. “Alright,” he says slowly, “then what am I missing?” he asks.
Steve gives Natasha a cursory glance and even though Tony knows what Steve was about to say it still surprises him when he says, “a good teacher for one. No offense Natasha, but you expect Tony to learn in the same way you do and that’s obviously not true. As adaptable as you may be it clearly doesn’t translate to teaching because it never seemed to occur to you to change the way you were teaching Tony.” He wasn’t cruel, he says it like it’s a basic fact and Tony supposes it was but it was still harsh regardless of the truth the statement held. Natasha takes it well though, showing little reaction as Steve turned back to Tony, “so let’s get to work.”
It turned out Tony wasn’t actually terrible at fighting; he wasn’t very good either, but better than he had previously thought. Natasha was not impressed when Tony picked up more in twenty minutes with Steve than he had in years with her and neither was Tony. All this time he wasn’t an untalented moron, he just wasn’t picking things up because he wasn’t being taught in a way he understood. Steve explained things in a way that was easy to understand, and he explained why Tony was supposed to move in the way he suggested. He understood why Natasha taught in the way she did, really, he hated teaching people about tech because half of their questions were so fucking obvious to him he had no clue how people didn’t just know. Obviously she thought the same way and resulted in the two of them being very frustrated with one another because Natasha knew what she meant and Tony was lost.
Steve, he thinks, was trying to build his confidence, which totally would have worked if Tony hadn’t decided to punch Steve in the stomach and ended up on the ground curled around his fist whining. “What are you made of?” he asks, giving Steve some unimpressed looks as he doubled over laughing at Tony’s reaction. Everyone else seemed to find it amusing too and in their defense he had reacted pretty hilariously. If he was them he would have laughed at him too because he punched Steve and then threw himself on the ground and started crying about his hand hurting.
“I’ve never seen anyone go from determined to done so fast,” Steve wheezes, “are you okay?” he asks.
“No!” Tony yells, “your abs broke me!” This makes everyone laugh harder and he is offended that any one person’s gut could hurt so much to hit. “I give up on this,” he says and decides he was going to lay there on the ground for the next forever.
Steve is laughing so hard he sits down so he can laugh harder, “I don’t think this is funny,” Tony says, “this is a god damn travesty. People were not meant to be built like that; you’re like made of steel or something!” He never had been fond of pain and he knew this was a bad idea, he told Natasha this was dumb, he’d stick to being the tech master and fighting in his suit.
“Tony it’s just muscle,” Steve says and reaches forward to pat his leg, “now get up.”
Tony relaxes all his muscles, “no.” He was done with this now, he tried, he failed, he was okay with that and now it was time for him to move on to things he liked. Namely anything but this.
“Alright fine, you win, but you were doing just fine until you decided it was a good idea to punch me,” he says, “I don’t think you should give up now.”
Tony lets out a loud and dramatic sigh, “I’m done. I’ve decided. Now throw me back to the sea,” he says.
*
Clint was fond of Coulson, they got along surprisingly well and Fitzsimmons was having a metaphorical cow over their brain scans. They’ve run about a million and one experiments to see how the bond worked and it’s resulted in them rooting for Clint and Coulson to get together. Clint may have given in earlier but Coulson doesn’t understand his love for food and he’s not sure he can love someone who doesn’t understand his love for food. He was upset Nat hauled off and ended up with Bruce because she got it, they both loved food more than people but no. Off with Bruce she went.
Coulson shows up in Bruce’s lab, likely because Bruce called him to pick Clint up or shoo him out or something but he wanted some damn peace from the absurd competition the alphas made out of earning Tony’s friendship. None of them even cared about Tony’s friendship, they just didn’t want to lose and Tony knew it so he’s spent the last two days fucking with them all. Clint was pretty sure he’s employed Loki’s help but the two still seemed to hate each other so maybe not, either way he wanted to eat his pasta in peace without having to deal with whatever stupid thing Tony had gotten the alphas to do now. At least Melinda seemed to think the competition was stupid, and Bobbi was smart enough to see though Tony’s shit, Lance seemed to have fun helping in getting the alphas to all trip over each other. Sam seemed to be having fun fucking with them all too, but from what Clint has gathered Sam is a rare breed of chaotic good, at least in his personal life.
“Clint what are you eating?” Coulson asks, giving his pasts a disdainful look.
He isn’t sure why he feels compelled to defend his pasta’s honor but he does, “it’s my dinner, Coulson, and it tastes great,” he informs him.
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting Coulson’s reaction to be but he didn’t expect him to knock Clint’s food off the table and into the trash can he strategically moved there. Clint stares at his fallen food for a few seconds before he lets out an inhuman screech, “my pasta!” he yells and dives for the can.
Coulson expects this reaction though and he kicks the trash can out of the way, sliding it closer to where Bruce was glaring at them for interrupting his work. “I will straight up eat that out of the trash,” Clint warns, he’s done it before and he’d do it again.
“You will not eat food out of the trash, Clint! For god’s sakes, why would you even consider that? And trash in a lab no less, god knows what Bruce has stuck in there and you’re going to eat out of it?” he asks, looking horrified with Clint’s decision.
“You threw out perfectly good pasta, you did this to yourself,” Clint tells him and crosses his arms. Coulson was a god damn travesty, throwing out pasta because he didn’t like it.
Coulson sighs, “you should eat healthier, Clint,” he says and he can feel that Coulson is trying to help him, really, it’s sweet. But he threw pasta in the garbage. Clint just can’t love someone who doesn’t love pasta.
“I’m not eating salad; I will die before I eat salad. Salad is the invention of the devil and it was made with the intention of making people suffer,” he says.
Coulson rubs his temples, “Clint salad is not Satan, its leaves. Now stop over reacting and assuming I’m going to attempt shoving salad down your throat and come with me, I made actual food and I’m sure you’ll like it,” he says.
He isn’t a moron, he knows that Coulson is trying to lure him out of Bruce’s space with food but he’s seen what Coulson eats, he is not going to eat something with a fancy name that is essentially salad. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” he says, “I am not going to eat whatever monstrosity you labeled ‘not salad.’”
“I made tacos-”
“Done,” Clint says and hops off the stool ha had stolen out from under Bruce’s ass a half an hour before and heads over to the trash can to fetch that pasta. It was fine, he literally just took the trash out but Coulson has other ideas.
“Clint, get out of that!” he snaps, Command tinging his voice. Clint could have resisted and they both know it, Coulson meant it to be that way, his intention was to let Clint know he was serious about not eating trash food. Clint decides to ease Coulson’s overly anxious mind and leave the trash be so he could see what Coulson meant by tacos. He better not have made fucking taco salad, Clint will fight.
As it turned out Coulson was a total foodie but like, a healthy one, and if Coulson was doing the cooking he was willing to convert because the guy can cook. He’s changed his mind on not loving one Phil Coulson, he has made a mistake, Coulson just might be his Lord and Savior. “You are the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me,” Clint mumbles around a mouthful of food.
Coulson looks very pleased with himself and Clint can feel his mind buzzing with pride, “told you healthy food wasn’t gross,” he says. He’d respond to tell Coulson that whatever he did to this food was a total fluke but it was so damn good he decided he’d just stuff more in his mouth instead.
*
Tony is having fun with the alphas running over each other in an attempt to impress him, mostly because the women seemed to realize this was fucking dumb, and because Lance, Loki, and Sam were having the time of their lives giving out false information. However fun it was to fuck with people he needed a new plan because his poor lab had become a revolving door and it needed to stop. Melinda and Bobbi seem to have gotten the memo because on day three they decide to come clean, telling him about the bet Sam made in an attempt to stop the madness. Truthfully Tony was rather fond of Bucky, and Steve was just so damn easy to guilt trip with the whole Commands thing, and everyone else was boring to him. At least Coulson seemed to realize the key to Clint’s heart was food and the two had finally started acting less like a squabbling old couple and more like a happy married couple.
“That’s nice, guys,” he says and turns back to his work though he’s still paying attention to where the two of them were situated. He wasn’t a moron, he saw Bobbi take Natasha on a few hours ago and almost win, and Melinda probably wasn’t any less well trained. He had a healthy fear of Nat and by proxy Bobbi and Melinda. Also Melinda looked like she could swallow nails and not flinch in pain and Tony didn’t trust people who didn’t feel pain unless it was a medical thing.
The two exchange a look, “you knew,” Bobbi says, catching on quick.
“Mmhm, Lance told me right after it happened, we’ve been fucking with you guys the whole time. You probably should be worried about how easily manipulated your teammates are. I mean Bucky I get, poor guy’s in recovery, but everyone else? Seriously, neither Mack nor Steve care about my friendship, they just want to outdo each other. Also I think Fitzsimmons has a crush on Mack, FYI.” He felt the information was necessary, even more so seems how Sam hit them up with his Sam magic too and now he knew far more about Fitzsimmons’ sex life than he thought he ever would.
Bobbi and Melinda exchange another look, silently communicating with each other. Melinda grins and Tony’s pretty sure his heart rate just spiked, “we want in on it,” she says and Tony gets this odd urge to flee the scene.
Bobbi smacks Melinda’s arm, “stop smiling, you’re freaking him out,” she says, “also who the hell is Fitzsimmons? I mean I know that’s how you refer to the two overly excitable scientists but which one is Fitzsimmons? And who is Jemma? And Fitz? What the hell is going on there because the name thing has been confusing all of us.”
Tony calms himself a bit when Melinda stops looking like she’s going to tear his throat out with her teeth. “Fitzsimmons is Jemma and Fitz. Jemma is the woman, Fitz is the guy, but because they’re attached at the hip we just started combining their last names and calling them Fitzsimmons,” he says, “if you came to me like twenty minutes ago I would have been happy to let you in on our games but I put them all out of their misery so I can have my damn lab back,” he says and gives them pointed looks.
They either don’t get the point or they’re choosing to ignore his very obvious hints to get out of his lab, “okay one last question,” Bobbi says, “do you have any idea how many of us Sam has slept with?”
Melinda looks surprised, “you too?” she says.
Bobbi’s eyebrows shoot up,” you? I thought you’d be immune because, well, you’re… you. Damn, this is more wide spread than I thought…”
Sam, Tony knew, was having some serious fun with the rumors, spending a good amount of his time contributing to them for fun. Tony had always enjoyed Sam because he was a total shit disturber and he did it just to see what would happen though he was never cruel about it. He just spread a bunch of harmless rumors to see what would happen, like that supposed threesome with Pepper and Tony that he had asked Tony if he could spread. Everyone fell for it. Tony had gotten curious and thrown Rhodey in there too and people still believed it.
Unfortunately the downside to Sam’s shit disturbing ways was that sometimes he got ideas and decided it was a good idea to try and set people up with each other. So far he had contributed to Coulson and Clint getting together, he was working on integrating Mack into Fitzsimmons’ relationship, he decided to try his luck at patching Loki and Thor’s relationship, and Tony wasn’t sure if he was trying to set him up with Steve or Bucky but he was doing things there too. “I think it’s just safe to assume Sam has slept with everyone someone says otherwise, honestly he’s got a superpower or something,” one Tony wanted because really, how useful would that be?
“Okay but he has this weird habit of trying to set people up after, he’s totally been trying to get Lance and I together again, is that normal?” Bobbi asks, squinting at Tony.
He sighs, “I thought you only had one more question,” he says, “fine. Yes, this is a normal thing, he tried it the first time we met with both Pepper and Rhodey but picked up quickly that that was not going to happen,” he tells them, “now will you guys leave?” They thankfully do take their leave and Tony calls Dummy over to he can rewire a few things on the bot and hopefully he’ll stop trying to be friends with Steve.