"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
-Albert Einstein
When Tony heard that Natasha became a vegetarian, he nearly spat out his coffee in shock. And considering that coffee was his baby, well…
Actually no, that sounded weird. He might have a tendency to blow things up, but he wasn't the type of person to drink his baby or do something disturbing like that.
But seriously. Natasha. A vegetarian?
Over the breakfast table, he watched her disbelievingly as she dumped out the precious bacon onto another plate, and went back to devouring her pancakes.
He swore he almost saw Thor cry. To be honest, Tony almost did the same, because rejecting bacon shouldn't have been possible.
He snatched the bacon away protectively before she did something ridiculous, like throwing it in the garbage. "Whoa, Nat, what are you doing?"
She gave him a glare, a forkful of pancakes halfway to her mouth. "Throwing away the pig fat filled with cholesterol that gives people a higher risk of a heart disease and a stroke."
She went back calmly eating her pancakes like she didn't just drop a bomb in the room as everyone stared at her. Steve looked down at his bacon suspiciously, and no she did not just-
She so did not just do that.
Clint toppled off his chair with a crash, looking at Natasha like she ran over his pet dog. "Did you- what did you- why?"
Bruce just coughed awkwardly, and slowly edged out of his seat. "I think I'm just going to… go?"
He quickly ran out of the kitchen, and Tony glared at his retreating back. Traitor.
Natasha rolled her eyes as she quickly finished her breakfast, and stalked out of the room. "Drama queens. It's only bacon."
As soon as Natasha's red curls disappeared from sight, Tony turned to Clint, who was already facing him, cross-legged on the ground.
"This is war."
Clint nodded seriously. "We have to get Nat back to normal before it's too late."
"This is a dire moment." Thor boomed in agreement, gulping down his waffle sandwich with poptarts in the middle (which honestly looked disgusting, but whatever). "We must bring Nat back to sanity."
"Well said, Katniss and Point Break." Tony grinned, popping a piece of heavenly bacon in his mouth that Natasha decided to abandon."So… plans? I'm up for buying some cows, and setting them loose in her room."
"We should have a day, where everything we cook should be steak and meat and hamburgers," Clint replied, rubbing his hands together gleefully.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?"
Everyone turned towards the intruding voice with a betrayed look, and Steve held his hands up.
"I mean, I know I don't want to die," he laughed nervously.
Everyone just looked at him.
"Fine, if you guys want to run headlong into a death sentence, that's fine with me." Steve backed away slowly, and then saw the glint in Tony's eyes. "I have to… be somewhere at this moment. Have fun!"
He quickly turned away, and well, Tony wasn't letting him get away that easily.
"Cap, not so fast." Tony swung an arm around Steve. "You're going to be helping us too."
The first plan was in action, and Tony couldn't help but cackle evilly. He watched on the couch as Steve sighed for the millionth time as Clint pushed him into Natasha's view.
Steve waved his hand tiredly. "I was forced into doing this. Am I allowed to sue?"
Her eyes widened as she took in the cardboard box that Steve was wearing.
"With a heavily grain and sugar-based diet, we are suffering increased rates of obesity, cancer, diabetes, and osteoporosis," she read one of the messily scrawled words on the cardboard background. "Meat helps keep blood sugar levels stable due to its fat and high protein content."
She looked up with a bored glare. "Where did you find this garbage?"
Steve gestured at Tony accusingly, as he ripped the cardboard box in half and tossed it to Clint.
Tony clasped a hand to his chest dramatically, feeling the cold, hard metal of the reactor. "On the handy-dandy Internet of course, my dear Nat."
Natasha snapped back, "Don't call me dear, unless you want to be castrated."
He backed off quickly, because he still wants to have his body parts still intact, thanks very much. "Okay, someone's a bit grumpy now."
She snorted and instead said, "Is this all you can do?"
Clint hid a snicker, and she looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. "Oh, so we're on this stage already. I'm so going to win this war."
"I'm joining her," Steve immediately responded. After seeing Tony's incredulous glance, he shrugged, "At least I'm not going to be wearing paper boxes anymore."
He had a point, Tony mused. That wasn't exactly the greatest idea, but to his defense, Thor was the one who suggested it. He should have set the box on fire or something to make it more dramatic.
Anyways, where was Bruce? The more, the merrier.
Then right on cue, there was a crash in the kitchen, and a second later, Thor poked his head in the room sheepishly, covered in corn flakes, followed by a very grumpy looking Bruce clutching a bowl filled with milk.
"We ran out of cornflakes."
Then he stopped, and stared at the cardboard box in Clint's hand. "Is this…?"
Clint nodded excitedly, and Bruce let out a groan.
"Oh no, I'm not going to join this. The last time there was a war, the tower was nearly trashed because someone decided with would be a good idea to blow up the bathroom."
Tony grinned crazily. Totally wasn't his fault or anything. He just happened to be in the bathroom, when the bathroom happened to blow up. "And that's why Brucie-bear, you're going to join us. Pick a side."
Bruce winced at the expectant looks coming to him from both sides of the room. "I think I'm going back to my lab to think for a while. And maybe get some peace."
He rushed out, muttering under his breath, "And I just wanted to have some cornflakes today."
Tony watched Clint climb through the air vents again, as he gave him the thumbs up, mouthing, "She didn't notice."
He mentally cheered inside, and gave Clint a high-five, while hurrying to the kitchen for some celebratory coffee or cake or something.
And then stopped.
Clint slid to a stop next to him, open-mouthed, staring at the transformed room.
"What the…"
The kitchen was covered in trees with leafy green fronds, waving in the air, and the ground was covered in dirt, like some sort of jungle. Grass and flowers sprinkled the ground, and vines hung in the air. The chairs were replaced by wooden logs, and the stove didn't exist anymore, replaced by an indoor campfire.
How the whole kitchen wasn't up in flames yet, Tony didn't know.
He stepped inside gingerly, and winced, because he could already hear Jarvis snickering at his horror. The floor was a perfectly fine specimen, so why the dirt? But seriously, what happened to the technology? The stove? How were they going to eat?
Where did the microwave go?
How was he going to live?
At least the coffee machine was still in the corner, because then he would have probably flew into a fit.
Clint reverently touched a tree, and glanced back towards Tony with disbelief.
"This is real. How did Nat even get it to fit through the front door?"
"I went to Hogwarts."
Both of them jumped back, as Natasha slipped through the kitchen door like a ninja. A magical ninja, apparently. Then, as Tony turned in retaliation, he spotted her face.
No way. This was gold.
He collapsed to the ground in laugher, and who cared if he was getting dirt everywhere, this moment was so worth it. "Clint- you… you absolutely outdid yourself."
Clint gave a mock bow. "Thank you."
Natasha looked at them both in confusion, before a flash of understanding flew across her face. She slid out one of those tiny mirrors, and glanced in it before letting out a hiss of anger.
"You both. Are. So. DEAD."
So when Bruce came in for his morning tea, he stopped in confusion.
In all honestly, it was chaos, since Tony was kind of running for his life, and Clint was tied up in vines in the corner, dying of laughter. Natasha was close behind him with a pointed stick, and the kitchen jungle was still… well, a jungle.
But the best part was Bruce's expression, when Tony slipped and Natasha caught up to him, because he finally got a full view of her face.
Someone had dusted Natasha's face partially white, and gave her a pink nose with long, floppy white ears drawn on with sharpie.
She was, essentially, a bunny.
A very angry bunny that was about to kill him. But a bunny nonetheless.
The cup slipped out of Bruce's hands, and fell to the ground with a crack.
Even when Natasha dumped a gallon of milk on his head, and Clint was covered in hummus, Tony had no regrets, because that was so worth it.
After a week filled with the stench of raw meat floating through the air, along with live cows trampling all over Steve's room (hey, it was a good idea), the team trudged into the kitchen for a final verdict.
"It's going to be close to impossible to wash off all the blood off the walls," Tony groaned, head on the table. And remove all the trees from the kitchen. And the cows. Not to mention all the work he's behind on because of the time he spent filling Natasha's room with bacon.
Natasha let out a suspiciously sweet smile, "I guess that's true. But it'll be harder to wash this off too."
Wash this… what? Wait, was this a trap?
He could see Clint's eyes widen in horror, and before he could move, Natasha pushed an invisible button on the wall, and then everything turned red.
Literally.
Animal blood poured from the ceiling (again, how did she managed to drill a hole in the ceiling without Jarvis notifying him?) and slid down his shirt and his work jeans. And he actually liked that shirt.
He ungracefully rubbed the blood away from his face, and spat on the ground, because somehow, some of the blood got into his mouth. Absolutely disgusting.
He saw Thor look at him and Clint with astonishment, and back at the ceiling, and then to Natasha. Then, he watched as he slowly raised his hands, and started clapping. For her.
Then Bruce, and then Steve began clapping.
He glanced at Clint with a grimace, who was also covered in the sticky red, and nodded to Natasha resignedly. "All right, you got the last laugh."
He raised an eyebrow. "But, we've taken photos of you with the makeup that Katniss here so masterfully did, so it's not like this is over. And you didn't turn anyone vegetarian here, so…"
Bruce shifted uneasily. "Well…"
He glanced down after all eyes went to him.
"I kind of… am a vegetarian too?"
"WHAT?"
"Brucie NO, that's the dark side."
"I WON."
Bruce shrugged, smiling nervously. "I don't really like bacon either."
"YOU WHAT?"
No hate towards vegetarians, you guys eat whatever you want to eat, and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. But I decided to use one of those random quote generators this time, and got this one, and thought "Well, why not?" I always imagined Bruce and Natasha to be the most likely to become vegetarians, so here we are.
You probably realized this already, but yes, this was before Ultron, and right after the Battle of New York. It's easier to write them as a team like that, since that was before all the Civil War split-up.
Hope you guys enjoyed this piece! Thanks for faving and following whoever did, and I'm still up for PMs and such.
