Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers

Warnings: Implied and Referenced Past Child Abuse, Swearing, Steve and Clint are a-holes at the start.

Cross-posted on my AO3 with a collage.

Tony Stark was an annoying, arrogant, egotistical and selfish man. If you asked the press and public that is.

His friends; Happy, JARVIS, Pepper and Rhodey along with the five other Avengers would say that the public got one of those right. He was annoying. Anthony Edward Stark was an annoying man, but definitely not the rest once you removed his public facade that protected him from their sharp words.

Though he may be annoying. He meant well. It wasn't a matter of him doing it on purpose, it was just who he was. His actions were completely natural. It wasn't his fault that the way he worked annoyed people.

—LINE BREAK—

Tony talked. A lot. Okay, that's not exactly accurate…well, it is, but with Tony's work, he has to talk. Like you can't exactly go to a board meeting that requires you to speak without…talking. It's more accurate to say that Tony rambled. A whole lot. Without even realising it most of the time.

He spoke to clear his mind. His mind was always full of thoughts that were all crossing over each other. He rarely realised that what he was thinking has become verbal.

JARVIS recorded Tony when he went off into his own world and would begin to recite his thoughts verbally, the AI created a large folder, with categories and sub-categories to organise the recordings. Even more incredible, the folder was JARVIS' first ever independent decision and Tony couldn't have been more proud (especially when he went through some of the labelled -labelled thanks to the AI- recordings and realised the ideas, plans, etc were worth billions).

The recently moved in Avengers got irritated by it, some more than others.

Clint and Steve got the most annoyed with Tony's rambles. They usually shouted at him to shut up. Neither realised that he wasn't doing it on purpose as they felt Tony was merely talking with large scientific words that they didn't understand to mock their lack of knowledge and overall intelligence.

Natasha got annoyed, of course, she wasn't the exception. But you could only tell by the tense way she held herself. By the clenched fists and occasional swipe past the weapons on herself. Sometimes she sent a growl Tony's way or stared deep into his soul…well, she seemed to at least. But, Tony didn't really notice, not all the time. When he did though, he shut up instantly.

Bruce. Well, at first, the doctor got irritated. But…he couldn't stay annoyed for long without being a hypocrite. Whilst he didn't ramble as much as Tony did, he would occasionally talk to himself as he was doing research and science experiments. He was also very understanding. He knew what it was like to have a lot of different thoughts streaming through your head at any one point, though his weren't as chaotic, then again some of the time he had the Hulk's thoughts slipping through his mind…though they weren't usually…much.

Then there was Thor. Intelligent, interesting, innocent Thor. Well…not entirely innocent, but sort of innocent…it was complicated to explain and isn't the point. The god didn't have a single problem with that annoying trait. In fact, the blond often could be seen smiling gently as Tony rambled obliviously. He found it relaxing and enjoyed it even though he rarely understood what the genius was talking about.

—LINE BREAK—

If Tony wasn't rambling away, then he was tapping his fingers and feet to a beat only he could hear. Most of the time it happened when he was in a board meeting, a conference or a debriefing. So basically whenever he couldn't talk and his mind was busy. See, whilst Tony tended to ramble without realising, he only ever did it when he was in some form of privacy -when he was at home, surrounded by trustworthy people, etc. So he tapped away. It was incredibly annoying.

It irritated Steve the most due to his enhanced senses. His eyes would pick up on the tapping and his ears would pick up on the noise the tapping generated. It made him lose focus, which annoyed him a lot when the Super Soldier was supposed to be speaking. On more than one occasion, Steve had smacked his hand down on top of Tony's to stop the tapping and unfortunately, Steve tended to forget his strength and sometimes hurt the genius -it wasn't intentional but with anger infused actions, it was easier to forget and Tony was thankfully forgiving…though he liked to milk his injuries to see just how pitiful and apologetic the larger man would get.

Natasha was similar to Steve. Whilst she didn't have the enhancement he did, she was a spy and it was next to impossible for her to miss things like that. She would always pick up on the movement out of the corner of her eye and it annoyed her so very much. The redhead tended to stomp on his foot if they were tapping or she'd throw a knife just in front of his tapping fingers. That usually made him freeze like a statue.

Bruce, who usually sat next to Tony, would nudge his shoulder in a halfhearted attempt to make him stop. Sometimes the man subconsciously tapped his feet or fingers along to the beat Tony was creating.

Then there was Clint and Thor. Both of them would find it amusing and tended to make bets amongst one another to see who would get annoyed with Tony quicker -Nat or Steve- or to see how long it would take for Tony to start is tapping. The pair of so-called adults would even join in but unlike Bruce, they did it with the intention to cause even more irritation (and knew they were doing it).

—LINE BREAK—

If Tony wasn't rambling or tapping, he was pacing. Though most of the time, he would pace and ramble. Which was just double trouble and had resulted in several occasions where Steve or Clint would hold Tony to stop it. The latter tended to sit on the man's back, whereas the former tended to hold him on the couch with a hand over his mouth, gently though.

Natasha had taken after Clint and often sat on Tony whilst painting her toes (she was allowed to have girly moments and it was actually a great way to shut Tony up because she'd paint his nails -because if he wanted hot pink nails then he would have them), either way her way of stopping the pacing was rather effective and Tony usually looked forward to having the little 'pampering session with Nat' as he called it.

Bruce usually left the room, to be honest. It irritated him a bit too much and made the Hulk restless. The doctor found it best to leave in case he became big green and well, he knew the Hulk wouldn't hurt the team, especially Tony, but he didn't want to risk it. Fair enough.

Once again, Thor just watched with an amused and kind smile. Occasionally, he would reach out and tug the smaller man onto him and they'd end up cuddling before Tony talked himself to sleep -literally, the pacing may have stopped but Tony would continue to speak and would exhaust himself until he was snoring adorably into the god's chest.

—LINE BREAK—

There were many things about Tony that was annoying. But the Avengers grew to love his annoying traits; except for him not eating, not sleeping and overworking himself. In fact, whenever Tony wasn't there, they found the atmosphere tense and uncomfortable without their resident genius yammering on about this, that and the other. When he wasn't tapping his fingers, they found it difficult to concentrate, which was the complete opposite of how they first felt about the tapping.

And the reason why Thor never got annoyed with Tony? The mortal reminded him of what Loki could've been. Many a time, Thor mentally remarked over the similarities between Loki and Tony. They were two sides of the same coin. It was interesting to Thor. They were just so alike. He found the rambling to be reminiscent of Loki's when his younger brother would talk about what he learned, though this time, Thor actually listened. The tapping was similar to Loki, who had played around with his magic between his fingers when he was supposed to be quiet. Then the pacing, Loki loved to do that. Mostly because he was dramatic, like Tony, but also because he was so caught up in his own head. To Thor, Tony was everything his brother could've been. To Thor, Tony was his second chance. He knew it would do nothing to his brother, but he decided to do what he never did with Loki. Listen.

—LINE BREAK—

The Avengers were at a conference answering questions for the press and public. None of them enjoyed doing so, including Tony, but it was something they had to do. They were almost through when a blonde woman raised her hand to ask a question. Steve, being the gentleman, smiled and invited her to speak. Her sharp eyes stared at Tony almost maliciously and he knew he wasn't going to like the question. Hell, he didn't like her because she was an utter, for lack of better words, bitch.

"Christine Everhart. I have a question for everyone but Mr Stark."

"Go ahead." Natasha murmured, her eyes narrowed slightly,

"How do you put up with such an annoying man?" She asked bluntly, "I mean you all have to live with him and that can't be easy can it? He talks too much and is too eccentric. Apparently, he's incredibly clingy -if I were you, I'd leave and never look back." Let it be known that Christine Everhart never backed down. It was why she was so good. She was blunt and uncaring and was never intimidated. At least, until she got on the Avengers bad side. The blonde flinched at the glares she got.

"You don't know him. How can you possibly believe that you have the right to say such a thing?" Steve growled, still not used to the ways of the press, but he was definitely not going to sit there and allow her to talk bad about Tony,

"Sure he's a pain in the ass at times, but who isn't? Like the Captain says, you don't know him. None of you do." Clint continued standing up and staring down at the press, who were now shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

"What you deem as annoying, we deem as ordinary. Sure at first his actions irritated us, but now we don't like it when he's not rambling or pacing or whatever." Bruce murmured more quietly as he wanted to make his point, but not cause…well, anything.

"You say you'd leave and never go back but the fact that you continue to harass Tony says otherwise. You're a little pest that never seems to go away. Sure Tony talks too much and the only one who understands what he's saying is Bruce," And JARVIS but she didn't mention the AI, "But it's surprisingly comforting to hear him ramble on. Imagine a little puppy or kitten that could talk. That's what Tony is like." She heard a choke and smirked, Tony was probably blushing and glaring at her for that little comment.

"You say he's too affectionate." Thor started, his voice low as his finger tapped his chin in a way that made it look as though he was thinking about what to say. He probably was, to be honest.

"I said clingy-" She started but Thor waved her off,

"Tony is affectionate and at first it was difficult for all of us, including Tony. That's not to say we don't all love it now. My point is what you deem as annoying, we don't. You do not know Anthony and it's your loss. He is a remarkable man and we all care and love him dearly." Tony was speechless.

"I think we're done here," Steve stated and the team stood as one,

"Also," Natasha said as she turned to leave, "Anyone hurts him or the rest of my team. They deal with me."

"And me." The others added in surprising unison.

—LINE BREAK—

The team sat in the car on the way back to the Tower in silence. Tony had yet to say anything and secretly, the others were anxious about how the genius might react.

They took a seat in the communal living area in silence.

"Thank you," Tony whispered but they all heard and turned to look at the man, they smiled softly when they saw the faint shimmer of tears in the lighting.

Here's my tumblr if you're interested, it also has the story collages: anxious-soul

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