A concept: The Avengers notice that aside from Tony’s sleep-deprivation episodes, he’s actually a pretty calm dude. Even in the face of incredible danger on the battle field, he’s cool as a cucumber, calculated, almost seems like he’s disassociated from the situation with how at ease he sounds. So they decide to try to freak Tony out. His has a pretty high threshold for weird so it’s actually pretty difficult.
Natasha details a mission where things went horribly wrong and there had been blood everywhere and even she admits that once she’d stumbled out of the room, actually slipping on the amount of blood and falling with a splat in it, that she’d fallen to her knees and puked until she was dry-heaving. “Neat,” Tony says around a mouthful of sandwich. Natasha stares at him silently and hopes she doesn’t look as horrified as she feels.
Bruce tells Tony some of the worst things he saw in poverty stricken areas while he was on the run–child prostitutes, human trafficking, the poor dying of starvation as the rich nearby lived to excess including throwing out food that could have fed the hungry. “Okay,” Tony says very seriously. “So where should I focus my resources first?” “What,” Bruce stutters, and then awkwardly tells him where he’d seen those things so he could start fixing those problems.
Thor regales Tony with tales of battles fought and wars won at great cost. Gruesome details are not spared. He goes into great detail about one of his brothers in arms getting his leg torn off and then being beaten to death with it. Thor probably would have won the competition had he not gone off on a tangent about Loki and how he’d once disguised himself as a snake and then stabbed him. “That doesn’t actually sound that weird, considering some of the things I’ve heard siblings doing to each other,” Tony says, crunching on some chips. “How many times did you fall for that?” Thor is very disappointed with him even as he says, “Only thrice.”
Bucky tells Tony all about the torture he endured, how much he hated the chair and the pain it brought, how foggy it made him for days. When Tony just gives him sad eyes he continues on to tell him the worst part was the cryo, how cold it was, how waking up was so painful. Tony just gives him sadder eyes and then Bucky finds that any room he steps into goes up ten degrees and he has to tell JARVIS to cut it out because he runs hot and he hates waking up in bed soaked in his own sweat.
Steve gives explicit play-by-plays of what he saw during the war–the POWs he rescued along with Bucky, the concentration camps, the occupied towns they’d liberated. He describes haunted eyes and bodies that look like skeletons and the terrified faces of children. “I heard all of these stories from Howard,” Tony points out after staring at him awkwardly. Steve nearly hits the roof. “HOW THE FUCK COULD HE KNOW WHEN HE WASN’T EVEN THERE WHAT THE FUCK DID HE DO JUST CANVASS ALL OF EUROPE FOR PEOPLE THAT MET ME.” “I mean… yeah?” “WhatthefuckHoward!”
Clint recalls Budapest. Tony nods along. “Sounds like a bad vacation.” “It wasn’t a vacation, Tony.” “The last time I took a vacation I was dying and a guy with electrical whips who hated my dad tried to kill me.” Clint raises his hands. “Okay you win.”
Pepper hears about the competition and just says, “Carpeted kitchen.” “Okay, what the FUCK–” Tony begins after he’s shivered and muttered a distraught little ‘why.’ Pepper gives the Avengers a very disappointed stare. Why would they ever think that Tony could be freaked out by blood or violence after all he’s seen? She should tell them about the time she’d mentioned her aunt having a carpeted bathroom.
Something worse, carpeted bathrooms