WARNING: Slight pre-slash at the end :)
"Sir, please note that I am registering my gravest protests at this course of action. A night's rest would suit you much better than this-"
"Noted, J," Tony said, sounding tired. "Trust me; I'd like nothing better than a good night's sleep – or you, a good week's sleep. But this is just a bit more important, so I don't think that's going to happen soon. Now, where's Dummy and that coffee again?"
"You're latest caffeine hit will be here in a few moment, Master Tony. I believe Dummy is just avoiding Agent Barton, who is trying to claim the caffeine for himself."
"He's what?" Tony asked, gaping in horror. "Oh no he does not. BARTON!" he screamed, stalking out of the workroom.
He never noticed the workroom locking on its own behind him.
"You seem weary, lady spider."
"I've told you before, Thor, call me Natasha," the woman in question said, shooting a tired smile at the god of lightning. "And – I'm not just weary, I'm exhausted. SHIELD'S rough on agents, don't get me wrong – but we've spent the past month doing nothing but clean up, and I think I speak for everyone on this team – apart from maybe you and the good Captain – when I say that maybe it's time for a break."
"I have noticed a dulling in everyone," Thor mused in agreement. "I had attributed in to post-battle tiredness – I have noticed that Midgardians do not appreciate the beauty of a fight much, not even the good Captain in all his valour and skill – but perhaps you are right. I forget, sometimes, that the rest of you are not of Asgard, and often need to pause after a great battle or a tragedy."
The four superheroes glared irritatedly at the man standing in front of them. Of all the stupid things for Steve to do at that moment, calling a team meeting – each of them were busy thinking about their beds, instead of whatever reason Steve had for calling them there.
Of course, the irritation vanished in a flash when Steve pulled out a large sack, the kind the fake mall-Santas often used, from somewhere under the sofa. Truth be told, Tony hadn't even known such a large sack could fit in that space, but since he had been enlightened – he couldn't wait to be able to leave so that he work on a few experiments dealing with insanely useful spaces below his furniture.
Not that Steve seemed to be in a mood to let him go do that, however.
"Where's Bruce?" the man in charge of driving Tony insane asked, looking around the room with a kind of sadness normal humans only saved for tiny, defenceless, adorable and hurt baby animals, like puppies and kittens.
Tony sighed internally. No matter how much he respected Captain America on the field (even if he would never admit it), once they were off the middle of a battle, all of that flew out of the window and was immediately replaced by a constant level of not-entirely fond exasperation over the antics of Steven Rogers. One of them was the man's insistence of having constant team-meeting, which invariably lent to the unwritten rule that at least one person would be absent to keep an eye out on possible threats while the meeting was going on.
It seemed that Bruce had decided to hoard the lookout duty once again. Or, of course – "I'm sure he just lost track of what he's doing. You know how he gets when he finds something new and interesting in the library."
As Steve nodded in seeming agreement and forgiveness, Tony cursed rather loudly and explicitly in his mind. Bruce was going to owe him forever to make up for the truck loads of aspirin he was going to need to forget all about Steve Rogers' unholy glee.
"It has come to my attention that we, both as a team and as separate individuals, have all been on a really busy schedule, and have therefore been unable to find time for the other members of your team, or simply for yourself. So I thought that maybe we could all take a moment to relax, maybe do something that doesn't involve helping in rebuilding the city and listening to everyone's stories of the people they lost," the supersoldier continued, looking at all of them with more empathy in his eyes than Tony could bear.
Pity, he would have known how to handle. Empathy? It made a part of him want to burst into tears – but then, the only difference between that and how he'd been feeling ever since the end of Loki's invasion was that he wanted to cry harder than he had before, so he controlled any displays of emotions.
Besides, the Captain was right. They really needed to do something to boost team morale, because the way things were going, the next villain wouldn't even need to be superpowered. They would all be too tired and drained out to put up any sort of a fight.
"Which is why I thought of this!" Steve exclaimed, holding the sack in his hand up happily. "I spoke to Director Fury, and he told me about the sheer amount of fan mail about us that was being directed to SHIELD. And I thought that maybe this would help – so here's some fan letters for all of us to read, missing those that held death threats or dangerous items in them, of course."
At that, Tony couldn't help but feel a bit doubtful. He had absolutely no idea how fan mail could help him feel better – he had been dealing with it ever since he came out as Iron Man, and it had definitely never improved his mood.
But just this once, he was willing to go along with the rest of the team, if only because they looked like children who had been told that Christmas had decided to show up six months early in the middle of the summer heat.
As they flipped through the piles of letters that had been sent to each one of them, Tony noticed that the others did seem to be a bit lighter. He didn't get it himself – sure, reading a letter from a child or seeing a crayon drawing of him was nice and all, but it kind of lost its shine after the millionth letter in a year.
There was a reason he hadn't begged out of helping the rebuilding process just yet. He had an easy excuse – just like everything else located in the city, Stark Industries had a lot of property that needed to be repaired. But meeting people – actual humans, not the soul sucking vultures called high society – was the highlight of Tony's day, which was why he was currently working on replacing his alcohol dependence with caffeine.
Letters were impersonal, and a signed photo or a regulation reply (and sometimes he wondered what his life had become, seeing as he actually had a regulation reply to children's fan mail) with his signature was usually more than enough to keep everyone happy. He had no doubt that the rest of the Avengers would become hardened to mail in a few months – but until then, well, he knew Steve Rogers. He was almost certainly going to be subjected to this over and over until everyone complained.
(He very much doubted that Steve Rogers would ever tire of the mail. Sometimes, he doubted the man was even human.)
He had resigned himself to an afternoon's worth of wasted time when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.
Out of everyone on the team, it was difficult not to notice the fact that the Hulk – Bruce – had gotten the least mail. It was understandable – for people who weren't used to chaos like he was, the idea of an out-of-control Hulk was terrifying, and combined with the incident in Harlem and all the bad press he had gotten as a result, it was only the fact that he had saved Tony's life that stopped a public outcry against the big guy.
So the fact that a child's crayon drawing of what was assumedly the Hulk had somehow ended up in his pile of letters caught his attention.
It was a simple drawing – a green blob shaped thing, with the word HuLK written in blocky green crayon. Of course, there was also the additional I LOve yOu and THaNk YoU in red to complete the piece. Had it been Iron Man instead of Hulk, Tony wouldn't have given it a second glance. But it wasn't, and all Tony knew was that he had to show it to Bruce immediately.
"I'll be back in some, guys," he murmured, snagging the drawing and making a move to get up. Noticing Steve's expression, he added, "Don't sweat it, Capsicle, I promise I'll be back and finish my thank-you letters soon," in a gently teasing voice.
And before anyone could say anything, he strode off towards the elevator, getting to the new lab he had built his sole objective.
Tony hadn't failed to notice the fact that Bruce had become even more withdrawn than the rest of the team in the month following Loki's attack. He'd played it off as being unused to working in a team, an excuse everyone else had bought easily – none of them in a state of mind to dig deeper – but Tony knew better. The signs of depression were glaring for him – it was a fact that only he and Pepper knew, but in the months following the realisation of Obidiah's betrayal, he had been perilously close to slipping down that slope himself, and if it hadn't been for Pepper's refusal to leave him alone with his thoughts, he had have definitely fallen down.
The drawing was one of the few hopes he still had. If Bruce could perhaps see that the world didn't see him as a monster – that all they would need was a few concentrated media campaigns, and he would be even more beloved that Captain America – then perhaps he wouldn't try and shoot himself again.
"Hey big guy!" he exclaimed, feigning cheer as he walked into what had been official designated (by him) as Bruce's Official Physics Explosion Lab. The man in question didn't find it as amusing as Tony did, but he wasn't exactly one to become demotivated by something like that, so he just ignored Bruce's protests.
"I already told you," he murmured, head bent over a microscope, "I have work. I'll make it up to Steve some other time."
"Yeahhhhhh. Only problem with that is that I'm not exactly here to pull you back to the world of the living and Steve's odd and torturous plans to make us – well, less depressing as a team."
"Aren't you?" Bruce asked, raising his head and turning to face Tony, a quirked eyebrow the only sign of interest. "Well, if it isn't that, why are you here?"
"I happened to come across something that I thought would interest you, Brucie-bear," Tony replied cheekily, handing the crayon-covered sheet of paper over to Bruce.
He kept a close eye on the physicist as he scanned the piece of paper that was now in his hands. He wouldn't admit it any time soon – but he extremely nervous for Bruce's reaction.
He wasn't disappointed.
Bruce wasn't one to show an excess of emotion around anyone – Tony's pet theory was that ever since anger meant releasing the Hulk, he had taught himself to control not only rage, but all of his emotions in general – but even he couldn't hide how he felt about the piece of art.
The tears in his eyes were a bit of a giveaway.
"Thank you," he whispered reverently, never taking his eyes of the drawing, "Thank you for bringing this to me, Tony."
"Not a problem, big guy," he murmured in reply, allowing himself to smile softly once he was sure that Bruce wouldn't be directing his attention towards him any time soon.
While the man was distracted, he took the opportunity to clear a space of the couch he had made sure was installed in the lab in case he ever turned up – Tony loved his creature comforts, after all. The couch had turned into a storehouse for the piles of research papers that Bruce had been pouring over recently (Tony would never understand his affinity for physical records), but now that Tony was here, he was going to sort it out. It was Tony's space, and Tony was extremely possessive about his things.
Honestly though, he was hoping that this was the opening he had been looking for. Bruce had shied away from all friendly – and more than friendly – overtures he had made since that time in the hellcarrier, and well, Tony always had a hidden agenda.
As Bruce wordlessly made his way towards the sofa, Tony allowed the smile to turn into a small smirk. After this – well, he doubted Bruce would hold out much longer.
As his favourite character liked to say (and he really needed to figure out a way to use his money to make them produce a new season quicker than they had the last time), the game was on.
A/N: Yeah, Thor's speech patterns were difficult to say the least. They still feel a bit awkward to me, but I'm not too good at flowery speech, unfortunately.
Anyone get the reference at the end?
I hope you guys liked this piece! As always, please don't forget to drop a review on your way out :)