"I swear to God, Tony. Tony! Tony. It was not me. I didn't even touch the vase! I swear!"
Tony's eyes narrowed and Clint looked down nervously at the metal arm against his neck.
"In fact, I can tell you who did it! It was Natasha, Tony! She's out to get me. Ever since that thing with the nair."
Oh, damn. Tony was going to have to find out about that later. It sounded good. But for now, it was all about the vase. The priceless, one of a kind beloved vase.
"Just confess, Barton, and I won't kill you. That much, anyway."
"OHMIGOD! Tony! Look! It's Steve! He's trying to use your iPad again!" Clint practically shrieked, frantically pointing behind him. Tony allowed himself a couple of seconds of hesitation because, as old as this trick was, there was no way he was taking yet another iPad back to the apple store to be fixed, goddamn.
He whirled around, about to shout out to Steve that sharpies are not suitable for 'draw something ' but there was no-one there. He turned back to look at Clint. He now had a bow in hand, loaded and pointed right between Tony's eyes. Barton. He even had the indecency to look smug about it, the vase-smashing little punk. Well, Tony decided, he may have won the battle. But there's no way in hell he'd won the war. This wasn't over.
"Well, Barton. Seems we find ourselves at an impass. What do you propose we do?"
"I propose, as gentlemen, we put down our weapons, shake hands in a gentlemanly manner and ru-walk away."
"I suppose that seems satisfactory. On the count of three?"
"On the count of three."
"One..."
"Two..."
"THREE! A-HA!" Clint slapped Tony across the face and ran, waving his bow in the air and cackling, actually cackling.
"Goddamnit." Tony stood alone, hand against his cheek. "Jarvis? Get me Natasha on the phone. I gotta find out about this nair thing."