"Hey Stark," Clint looked up from one of the displays, his brow furrowed in an odd expression. "How come you have a Mindstorm mod in your suit?" He turned his gaze toward the engineer. Tony stood in the middle of the workshop, half of the mangled Mark 14 still attached to him. One foot was clad in a grey sock, scorched with singe marks, the other was locked into the extraction frame, most of the Iron Man boot still in tact and firmly stuck. His upper chest and one arm was still inside the armor as well and discarded pieces littered the floor.
Their most recent assemble hadn't gone horribly. It hadn't been a walk in the park either. About a thousand trash can shaped robots had descended on DC, their metallic voices screaming threats as their laser beams melted everything in sight. Tony had taken the worst of it, and once back at the Tower he'd been determined to salvage as much of the Mark 14 as he could. That had been almost an hour ago.
"What?" Bruce took the screwdriver out of his mouth, peering up from the arm of the suit.
"Don't touch that!" Tony bellowed, waving a hand at Clint as if to brush him away. He tried to take a step toward the archer, forgetting his left foot was still locked in the armor.
"Hold still!" Bruce scolded, returning his attention to the arm. "I can't reach the secondary manual override."
"Who said you could look at my code?" Tony sulked, twisting his hand as if trying to get a grip on the shoulder of the armor and pull it off. "Next you'll be looking at me naked!"
"You think there are people in this country who haven't seen you naked?" Clint asked incredulously.
"He has a point" Bruce admitted under Tony's withering glare.
"Will you get me out of this thing?" Stark demanded angrily before turing narrowed eyes on Clint. "Get the hell away from my code, bird brain."
"I don't think you can claim ownership of this code," Clint protested, waggling a finger at him with a grin. "In fact, I know you can't because I had this mod in my RCX."
"What in the world are the two of you talking about? Bruce asked in bewilderment.
"You see that little button?" Tony scowled. "That tiny little one by my elbow that I can't reach that will get me out of this twisted tin can? Concentrate on that for me, would you?"
"Seriously, Bruce," Clint turned to him in amazement. "You never had a Mindstorm?"
"What in the world is a Mindstorm?" Bruce frowned.
"Don't talk to him," Tony whined, trying to forcibly remove his foot from the Iron Man boot. "
"I don't believe it," Clint declared in surprise. "Didn't you have Legos as a kid?"
"I had Legos," Bruce nodded, still looking perplexed. Clint gave him an appraising look, ignoring Tony who was mashing at the unreleased Iron Man boot with his socked foot.
"You don't actually know anything about programing, do you?" Clint questioned finally.
"Nuclear Physicist," Bruce shrugged, pointing at himself with the screwdriver.
"Well now you're a mechanic," Tony barked. "Get me the hell out of here!"
"Ok, Mindstorm is this Lego set," Clint explained with a smarmy smile, shoving himself up on the lab bench, his feet swinging back and forth over the floor. "One of the bricks is a computerized motorization system. You can actually program it, write the code out yourself and build all kinds of shit."
"That's," Bruce paused, processing this information. "Actually pretty clever. It's an inventive and engaging way to teach applied sciences to children. How come I've never heard of it?"
"They're wicked expensive," Clint sighed. "You can't even buy them in most stores, you have to special order."
"Which begs the question;" Tony glared. "How could you afford one on a government salary?"
"I lived on base," Clint rolled his shoulders. He reached over, angling the monitor toward Bruce. "Anyway, this code here? This is an open source mod for… well it speeds up the installation of the firmware. I'd recognize this code anywhere." Tony glared daggers at him as Bruce blinked back mutely.
"I hate waiting," Clint added unapologetically. Bruce turned to Tony with a bewildered expression.
"Your suit is made of Legos?" He asked.
"No!" Tony protested, looking scandalized. "Well, the Mark 1… a little bit… but not really." Bruce stifled a chuckle in his hand.
"Hey!" Tony protested angrily.
"You know, the story about scraps in a cave would be so much cooler if it were scraps and Legos in a cave," Clint pointed out, grinning.
"Okay, look, this is not complicated," Tony rolled his eyes, pinning them both with a condescending look before turing on Clint. "Well maybe it is to you. I was building a motorized suit of armor and it needed a control system. I couldn't very well program from scratch, I didn't have time between the threats of dismemberment and drowning. And I couldn't use anything proprietary to SI because it's not like they'd let me anywhere near the internet. So I had to make do, I had to tell them I needed a guidance system and I talked them into downloading the code I needed. And really, what other sort of robotic assist programing is available for free? And like I wasn't going to install the quadrate download mod, I needed every second I could get once I strapped into the suit. There were guys screaming in arabic beating on the door I booby-trapped! Explosions and machine guns going off! And it's a suck-ass mod anyway because if it had been fast enough Yinsen wouldn't have died, so don't go judging my code choices, Robin Hood!"
Bruce and Clint stared at him in wide eyed silence.
"Son of a bitch, did I say that out loud?" Tony whispered, horrified. Bruce's hand was still frozen in mid air, and Tony drew in a breath through his nose. his eyes going wide.
"Get me out of here!" He ordered frantically, grasping at the gauntlet and pulling. Clint leapt off the lab bench practically tackling Tony and holding his arm steady as Bruce jammed the screwdriver into the narrow space, triggering the release, all sense of delicacy tossed aside. "Get me the hell out of this thing!"
Clint sprawled on the floor as soon as the gauntlet came free, stuffing his fingers under one of the mangled plates and unceremoniously ripping it off, triggering the manual release beneath it. Tony pulled his foot out and staggered back, shedding the last bits of the suit and tossing them aside as he distanced himself, bracing his hands on his knees as he gulped in breaths like a drowning man.
Bruce stood rooted to the spot, his expression both frightened and worried as Tony wheezed. Clint scrambled to his feet, rocking back and forth a moment as if unsure what to do.
"Tony?" he choked out softly, Bruce made a grab for his arm but he shuffled out of his reach, sliding closer to the billionaire. Tony's breaths were coming in short gasps, his eyes closed as he bent half doubled over.
"It… So…" Clint took a deep breath, crouching down so that he was looking up at Tony. "So your suit can solve Rubik's Cubes, right?" Tony opened his eyes, looking at him with a stunned expression. Clint flinched slightly and a moment later Tony let out a bark of a laugh.
"The Mark 12 could make pancakes too," Tony nodded, snickering as he leaned into Clint's shoulder for support. "But I had to dump the code to make room for the 3D printer."
"Tough breaks," Clint offered sympathetically. He bit his lip as Tony caught his breath, finally straightening. Tony waffled awkwardly a moment before giving him a sharp slap on the back.
"Look at this mess," Tony huffed. "Butterfingers, Yoo! Who told you you could sleep on the job? Get this dump cleaned up! Come on, chop chop!" Clint shoved his hands in his pockets. Biting his lip.
"How come the suit doesn't serve and chill beer?" he asked finally. Bruce rolled his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose with a soft groan.
"Who says it doesn't, Katnis?" Tony mocked, shooting him a grin.
"Aww, man," Clint sulked. "You've been holding out on me? I thought we were friends!"
"Tasha, what am I looking at?" Steve asked, his brow furrowed in a bemused expression.
"I thought we agreed no auxiliary parts that weren't made out of plastic!" Clint protested. "Shit!" He clutched his Stark pad to his chest, wincing and ducking as small plastic blocks flew through the air.
"A sign of the coming apocalypse, I suppose," she shrugged, glancing up from her novel only a moment.
"The lenses are made out of plastic!" Tony protested. "Which is why the damn things are barely blowing your headlights off."
"It appears to be some form of ritual combat," Thor shrugged, his arms folded over his chest as he slumped on the end of the sofa opposite Natasha. Steve leaned over the back between them. "I believe Anthony's small machine is about to triumph over Clinton's."
"They're called 'battle bots', Thor," Clint sighed as more blocks scattered in all directions. "And it's not over till the fat lady sings." He grinned manically, ducking behind his Stark pad.
"Who the hell builds a buzz saw out of legos?" Tony demanded in frustration as the black and purple robot with three rotating lego blades rolled over his red and gold robot, lopping off one of the swiveling arms with tiny repulsers on the end. It shattered in a pile of bricks on the floor, several of them pinging off the coffee table and tumbling under one of the chairs. Tony swore, mashing commands into his own Stark pad and one of the mini repulsers went off, scattering bricks off the edge of one of the buzz saw blades.
"Will a voluptuous maiden soon be serenading us?" Thor asked curiously. Tony let out a bawdy laugh.
"Screw you, Stark," Clint huffed, an evil grin on his face as he got in another good hit.
"Step on a Lego, Barton," Tony snorted in response. Clint looked at him with a hurt expression.
"You are a genuine monster, Stark," Natasha declared, emotionlessly.
"Fellas," Steve sighed, resting his forehead on the back of the couch. "Play nice." He hunched down as several more bricks went airborne, bouncing off of Natasha's book and landing in Thor's hair.
"Aww damnit!" Clint whined as his robot descended into a tailspin in the middle of the carpet. "My tread!"
"And Stark wins the pennant!" Tony declared, throwing both hands in the air. "They're going crazy! I don't believe it!"
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Steve shook his head, one hand sweeping in Tony's direction. "Richest man in the world; legitimate five-year-old." Clint toed at his crippled robot with a pout, folding his arms over his chest as Tony glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.
"Best two out of three?" Stark suggested awkwardly. Clint drew in a deep breath.
"You are so going down," he grinned evilly.
"Caw caw," Tony teased. Clint punched him in the arm, before heading for the door, Tony on his heels. "Wait until you see what I have planned."
"Hey, no!" Steve protested with a frown. "Get back here and clean this up!"
"Got it covered!" Tony insisted, pulling a Mindstorm controller from his pocket and pressing the button. A foot tall black and gray robot that bore a striking resemblance to Dum-E scuttled out from under the credenza, dragging a tiny Radio Flyer in its wake. Thor lifted his feet off the floor in surprise as the robot sped past, darting back and forth across the room as it paused to pick up Legos and toss them in the wagon with a soft ping.
"Nitwit's got this," Tony declared, draping an arm around Clint's shoulder and dragging him away. "You're so not going to win."
"Bite me, Stark," Clint huffed.
"He named it Nitwit," Steve stated in exasperation, watching the robot fish under the TV console, picking up one brick at a time.
"What did I tell you?" Natasha's attention had returned to her book. "Sign of the Apocalypse."
Notes:
Mindstorms is a truly awesome line from Lego. If you'd like to see some of the amazing things people make with Legos, check out Mindstorms on YouTube (where you'll be able to see the Rubik's cube solver, the pancake maker and the 3D Printer Tony and Clint reference in this fic, among other things.)
This story is part of a series called "Coulson Lives but the Avengers Might be the Death of him." The full list of stories and their chronological order can be found on my profile page