A/N: Someone on a forum recently observed that people writing fanfiction are constantly having Tony call Loki "Reindeer Games." Clearly, these people understand Tony is supposed to be snarky, but are not creative enough to come up with their own insults. I wrote a short explanation for why Tony keeps calling Loki "Reindeer Games" in all the fanfictions out there.
When Monday dawned, everyone gravitated toward the brand-new Keurig machine in the break room. They had jokingly asked Fury for one several weeks ago, and its sudden appearance attracted a fair amount of attention and jostling, along with questions of whether or not it was a harbinger of a very difficult or unpleasant mission to come. There was no note attached, no explanation for its existence. It simply was. After a brief tussle over who got to use it first (Clint won), they lined up and each got a cup of coffee, and then floated away to relax, clutching steaming mugs of liquid.
Steve didn't need the caffeine to wake up, nor was there any amount he could ingest that would affect him in any way, due to his increased metabolism. He just enjoyed the ritual. So he allowed himself to be last in line, and by the time he began making himself coffee, Tony was already leaning against the counter, waiting for his second while Clint made himself a third.
"Hey Cap. Good weekend?" asked Tony. He let Steve go after Clint in an uncharacteristic display of politeness.
"Pretty good," said Steve, brow furrowing as he tried to figure out how to add more water. "I, uh, finished the Sunday crossword. You know, the hard one."
Tony's head bobbed. "Yeah… yeah… pretty good. Mine was great. Had a quiet Saturday at home. Just some nice quiet relaxing, and a coke-fueled orgy. Actually I have a great story about that!"
"Uh-huh?" asked Steve. He suddenly realized what he'd done. For some reason, his brain hadn't processed the words "coke-fueled orgy" fast enough to avoid prompting Tony for his story.
Tony rotated his mug in his hands. "Yeah, it was great. Picture this, okay? Me. Four girls. Completely buck naked. Naked as the day we were born. One of them, this Asian—"
Steve scooted away from Tony towards Natasha, who was brooding near the window. She glanced over at Steve, then back towards the window. "Good weekend, Steve?"
"I finished the Sunday crossword."
"Ah, the hard one. Congratulations."
"How was yours?"
She shrugged one shoulder. "It was nice. I settled an old score. It wasn't really what I pictured. He was squealing like a pig. I thought he'd put up more of a fight but the moment the knife went into his eye, he—"
Steve edged back toward Tony, who was still talking and hadn't noticed Steve had gone.
"—found this nickel in her ass! Well, I hadn't seen a nickel in so long, I thought it was Canadian money. So I went up to Quebec to spend it, and know what they said?"
"...what?" asked Steve hesitantly.
"They said, Sorry, sir, we don't take American money!"
Steve forced a laugh.
Tony gave him a strange look. "That's not the punchline. The punchline is, when I realized it wasn't Canadian, I figured I should put it back. So when I got back—"
Steve had never been more grateful for a sudden interruption when, at that moment, there was a rumble like an earthquake and the walls of the room suddenly dissolved into blackness, and there before them stood Loki, brother of Thor, god of chaos. Aside from the tiled floor beneath their feet, the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s break room had disappeared.
"Everything's gone!" cried Bruce.
"The Keurig!" gasped Clint.
"Have no fear, my friends. This is merely an illusion to intimidate us," advised Thor. Despite being an illusion, standing on a platform in the vast emptiness of space was a disconcerting feeling, perhaps even more so because they were all still holding mugs of coffee.
"An illusion it may be, brother, but it is an illusion more powerful than any of you can hope to escape!" said Loki with a smirk. Standing where the entryway to the door had once been, he glowered at them in full battle regalia, complete with his staff, green cape, and horned helmet.
"End these hijinks and we shall refrain from attacking," bellowed Thor.
"Yeah, return us to earth!" yelled Natasha.
"Give us back the Keurig!" demanded Clint.
"Listen, Reindeer Games, unless you want us to kick your ass, you'd better fix this and get us back to our break room!" said Tony, stepping forward.
Loki paused. "You already used that one," he said quietly.
"What?"
"You already used that insult. 'Reindeer Games.'"
"I… I did?" Tony looked surprised, then quickly hid it. "No I didn't."
"Yes, you did. In Munich."
"Are you completely sure? I really don't think I did."
"Yes, because I had to look up the reference afterwards. I had no idea you were such a big Ben Affleck fan."
"What?"
"The movie from 2000, Reindeer Games, starring Ben Affleck."
"What? No! I mean… no, Ben Affleck is a good actor, don't get me wrong. He won an Oscar. No one is questioning Ben Affleck. But it wasn't a reference to the movie. It was a reference to the… the Rudolph song."
"He won an Oscar for Reindeer Games?" asked Clint, looking puzzled.
Tony shook his head. "No, no, he won an Oscar for directing Argo."
"I'm going to be honest, I thought you were talking about the Ben Affleck movie too. What do reindeer have to do with Loki?" asked Bruce.
Tony looked exasperated. "Because his helmet has stupid-looking antlers."
"They're horns, not antlers," said Thor. Everyone else nodded in agreement.
"Oh my God, you guys, who cares? The point is, we're not scared of Kokopelli here and we're going to kick his ass!"
"You used that one, already, too," said Loki.
"Are you serious?" Tony reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small blue notebook and a golf pencil. He flipped through it a few times, crossed something out, and then looked up. "How about, uh, Smeagol?"
"Yes."
"Malfoy?"
"Yes."
"Maleficent?"
"Do you write all these insults down in advance?"
"Yeah. I mean, of course I do. Why?" Tony cast a look around the room. "You guys don't think I just come up with these on the fly, do you?"
Thor shrugged. "Knowing this makes your banter much less impressive."
"Like any of you could do any better! Let's see Lucky the Leprechaun over here try to make a quip about me, huh?" snapped Tony, gesturing with his tiny pencil.
Loki's eyebrows raised. "Alright, fine. Have you gotten the rebel plans to Princess Leia yet, C-3PO?"
Everyone chuckled appreciatively, except Thor and Steve, who looked confused.
"Or have you been busy waiting for someone to bring you your oil can?"
Everyone chuckled again, including Steve. Thor still looked lost.
With a look of smugness, Loki continued. "This Stepford wife has really let herself go, hasn't she? Not sure who let the knock-off AstroBoy onto the team, but you'd be better off with Baymax than this sorry excuse for a mechanical man. I doubt he could beat a Roomba in a fair fight. Couldn't Battle Bots give you anything with a bit more chest hair?"
Everyone was giggling loudly by now. Tony looked absolutely enraged. He glared around, noticed Thor wasn't laughing, and said with relief, "Thor doesn't think you're so clever."
"Ah, my apologies, brother. I forget that you are less versed than I in the common culture of these base mortals." He cleared his throat. "Look at the tiny Annihilator! Is he here to guard the tiniest trophy room? I suppose you've chipped him off a larger gollum that contained a seam of metal, for his appearance is so small, he must not be a true gollum himself. Yet he imagines himself a god! A pity it isn't Hœnir—otherwise he might shut up once in a while."
Thor roared with laughter.
"Okay, can it, Bullwinkle. It's not funny," snarled Tony.
"Actually sir," piped up J.A.R.V.I.S.'s disembodied voice, "everyone finds it quite amusing except you. And Bullwinkle had antlers, not horns."
"Shut up, J.A.R.V.I.S.!"
"Yes, please do be quiet, HAL," said Loki. "Still relying on your electronic Alfred, then, Tony the Tiger? Or should I call you Tony the Transformer? You know, most heroes take inspiration from more than Saturday morning cartoons. Surely you did not intend for you little costume to serve as armor, did you? I had assumed you were trying to make yourself a bottle opener and got carried away." Again, everyone laughed.
"How do we know he didn't research quips beforehand, though, either?" asked Natasha, suddenly suspicious.
"Because, Buffy, I, the god of mischief, have no need to. This is child's play to me. I find it pathetic and yet predictable that Tony Servo put so much effort into insulting me."
"Big whoop, So you can name a bunch of robots. It's a lot harder to name pale villains and people with antlers," mumbled Tony.
"Horns," said Thor and Loki simultaneously.
Ignoring them, Tony said, "Yeah, well, at least I put effort into something. You guys are always saying how lazy I am."
"You're telling me the reason you skip meetings and show up late to everything is because you're writing down insults to use later?" asked Natasha skeptically, crossing her arms.
"Okay, fine, yes, Dark Angel, that's exactly what I'm doing. Don't you start, Magoo!" he warned, as Clint began to open his mouth. "I get enough guff from this Boy Scout over here!" He jerked a thumb toward Steve. "By the way, Winston Churchill did this and he ended up winning World War Two!"
"Not with pre-planned puns and jokes, Tony," said Clint.
"Well, excuse me for trying to lighten the mood!"
"I just can't believe you put this much effort into being an asshole," said Natasha.
Loki cleared his throat loudly. "As delightful as all this is, I came here to defeat you all in battle. So if we can please continue..."
"Oh. Right. Sorry. Hulk?" asked Tony.
The Hulk grabbed Loki by the arm and flung him onto the floor, cracking the tiles around him and leaving a large, man-shape depression.
The void around them dissolved back into the break room.
"Well, that was easy," commented Natasha, sipping her coffee.
The Hulk smashed Loki onto the floor several more times like a ragdoll.
Tony turned back to Steve. "As I was saying," he said loudly, leaning against the counter, clearly trying to save face. "When I got back, I found out it wasn't a nickel at all. It was a penny from 1943!"
"Ohh," said Steve. "I remember those! Copper was short because of the war, so they minted them in steel that year."
Tony fished around in his pocket and pulled out the silver-colored penny. "Want to hold it?" he asked.
"Not in a million years," replied Steve.