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Nothing can make a group of people irritable quite the same way as prolonged, oppressive heat. Unsurprisingly, a tower full of hot-headed superheroes made for no exception.
And, well– they might have been fine, under normal circumstances. Probably. Because Tony did have the most state of the art air-conditioning system in potentially the whole world, so theoretically they should have been able to sit through the heatwave whilst being blasted with cool air. Except. For the fact that, uh. Thor had toasted the whole thing three days earlier with a lightning strike intended to boost the system, and had burned the whole thing out to the point that it would take at least a week to repair.
So. New York was in the midst of its hottest summer on record, and goddamn were they all feeling it.
Steve said it was probably Global Warming, to which Tony couldn’t resist making a comment about how Steve should actually be grateful for melting icebergs– which of course started a bit of an argument because apparently that was insensitive.
Which, okay, maybe it was. But Tony was fucking hot, and no matter how many ice-cold towels he placed on his forehead or how many hours he managed to convince his Jotun lover to naked-cuddle with him, he still couldn’t cool down.
Tony really was spending practically his every day plastered against Loki’s side, using his partner’s cooler temperature to try and bring down his own. Loki didn’t seem to mind, but he point-blank refused to use his ice powers on Tony’s skin ‘just in case’, no matter how many times Tony told him that he trusted Loki with more than just his life.
Whatever.
Everyone was on fucking edge, and they needed to find something to cool them down or at the very least distract them from the heat. If they didn’t, New York might end up with more than just a heatwave to worry about. (Such as, quite possibly, an all out civil war between the resident superheroes.)
It was Peter, of all people, who came up with a solution.
In the middle of a rant about the shitty air-con in his school and the shenanigans the students got up to in an effort to both protest and cool themselves down, the kid mentioned a large-scale water fight– and Tony’s eyes lit up with excitement.
He wasn’t the only one, either. Everyone was ready to cool off, ready to feel anything other than a raging headache and the sticky, clammy feeling of melting.
Honestly, Tony had never seen the Avengers move so fast. They were all assembled in the middle of the Great Lawn in Central Park within minutes.
Of course, then came the difficult part—
Because, yeah, the Avengers might be a team, but they’d never been able to actually agree on anything in their lives. And arguing over who was going to be on whose side might as well have been a spectator sport, especially when they were all already so irritable.
But, they worked something out eventually – by way of Tony posting a poll on Twitter and causing the argument across the whole internet to get a little out of hand, but hey, at least their teams were sorted – and it wasn’t long before they were all standing opposite each other, separated in pairs and each with a large supply of water balloons which was never going to run out. An unfortunate – or perhaps fortunate, depending on the perspective – result of Tony’s Twitter escapades was that supporters had turned up with buckets of balloons for their favourites, and Tony was already rather sure that this was going to end up all across every online platform that existed.
Just. The sheer number of retweets was a little. Telling.
Still, it was more than clear that the spectators had done absolutely nothing to brighten the mood. Spirits were still at an all time harshness, the Avengers’ eyes narrowed as they stared each other down.
This wasn’t just a game.
It never had been.
This was war.
The heat had them all at each other’s throats, and there were more than a few of them out for some revenge– or even to simply release some frustration.
One of the Iron Man suits, piloted by JARVIS, hovered above them. He was the only one that all parties could agree upon to be the referee.
“Avengers,” JARVIS said, his voice holding more than a small amount of warning, and his hands holding up an old chessboard Clint had found in the rarely-used games cupboard. (Rarely used, that is, for good reason.) “On my mark.”
Tony’s right hand flexed around a water balloon, the rubber shifting against his skin. He reached to the side with his left, lightly brushing the inside of Loki’s wrist before entwining their fingers.
At the touch, Loki glanced over, the corner of his mouth turning up in a slight smile before his eyes darted back forward. They were partners in this, the pair of them apparently a team-up that the public had wanted to see happen– and Tony knew that if they worked together, they’d have a chance of wiping the battlefield clean. But he also knew without a doubt that Loki’s entire attention was going to be on Thor. Partially as vengeance for the destruction of the all-precious air-con, and partially because. Well. It was like, sibling law, or something.
And while Tony would be more than happy to help him with his crusade… he had something of a problem of his own. Because standing opposite him, eyes narrowed and teeth near on bared, glaring with the focus of an almost charging bull—
Was Steve.
Now, there’s something that needs to be understood about Steve.
One of the side-effects of the serum that turned him into Captain America was his metabolism speeding up, to the point where it became four times faster than any normal human being. Some of the results of that change are more than obvious– the fact that he can eat eight cartons of Thai food without feeling full, for example, or the fact that the only thing Tony’s ever seen him get drunk from was some weird-smelling mead Thor brought from Asgard and then wouldn’t allow anyone else to touch. The less obvious effect, however… is that Steve runs at an abnormally high temperature.
So while he is perfectly capable of withstanding freezingly harsh temperatures far better than any ordinary human – which probably helped him to survive his time as a popsicle – this continuous, horrid heat drove him insane with far more severity than it did anyone else.
It was clear from the frustration-fuelled anger in his expression that Steve was ready to throw himself into this with everything he had left, to rally all of his rage into violent delights—
And Tony was the one in his crosshairs. Probably because of that goddamn Global Warming joke. Shit.
Tony tried not to let his apprehension show on his face, and mustered his best glare to shoot across the battlefield. He squeezed Loki’s fingers, and received a squeeze in return– then they dropped their hands and prepared for battle.
Above them, JARVIS held the makeshift ‘chequered flag’ a little higher in the air. “Combatants ready!” he called out. “In three—”
Tony’s breath cut short, his heart beat hard in his chest—
“—two—”
He raised the red balloon in his hand—
“—one.”
Before JARVIS’ chessboard had even fallen to the floor, the air filled with colourful rubber missiles as every Avenger launched their payload. Tony only just managed to get out of the way of the blue water balloon Steve launched at him, but he was then caught in the side of his head by someone else’s.
The thing exploded– a cascade of water splattering across his face, the sting as sharp as the knowledge that his own balloon had missed Steve.
The water wasn’t cold, warmed as it was by the sun, but it still cooled him down. Yet, despite that wonderful service, Tony still felt the rage of being one 0f the first to be hit.
But, you kn0w. The good thing about water fights is that there isn’t really a way to be out. It wasn’t like paintball. With a water fight, if you get hit, you keep going.
Which meant that Tony was going to have plenty of opportunity for revenge.
The other thing about water fights, though?
Well, because there was no real way to get out, there was also seemingly very little need for strategy, and as such…
It very quickly turned into a chaotic melee.
There were balloons flying everywhere, people cursing as they got hit and then shouting in rage as they threw their own ammunition. Teams disintegrated as partners turned on each other, cries of betrayal mingling with the sound of the cheering crowd.
JARVIS was flying overhead like a wasp, his voice buzzing as he tried to call for people to follow the rules, but no one was listening to him. Clint was using a fucking slingshot, and Hulk – Tony wasn’t entirely sure how he’d got hold of a literal truckload of ammo, but he was quite certain he’d find out on Twitter later – was just hauling balloon after balloon after balloon—
Tony hadn’t even seen Nat since it started, though her partner – Steve – was making enough of a muddy mess for three people—
And Loki—
Well.
Tony had been right about Loki.
The god had eyes for only one other man, ignoring everyone else in favour of focusing on his brother. From what Tony could see in between his own dodging and flinging of balloons, the pair seemed rather evenly matched. Thor had the upper hand on speed and strength, but Loki’s use of his seiðr allowed him to launch multiple projectiles at once.
Tony was forced to look away as Peter danced by, using his webs to swing balloons around his head like a mace and chain flail, cackles spewing from underneath his mask. Tony ducked and weaved, and by the time he looked up again Thor was picking a bit of green rubber out of his wet hair.
“You think you can win?” Thor roared, his voice echoing across the lawn like the boom of thunder. “You and Stark shall not defeat the young spider and I!”
Loki was smirking, and Tony rather thought that Thor was a bit out of his depth – even if his assessment that they were still working in pairs remained entirely incorrect – but then Thor raised his hands to the sky with a below that might have belonged on the battlefields of Asgard—
And the heavens opened at his command.
People all around them shouted in excitement as the Lawn was suddenly drenched in a torrent of rain, as if the fight had earned its own little black raincloud. Even Steve stopped, blinking up in surprise.
“Does that mean we win?” asked Peter, running up next to Thor on light feet, hand raised for a high five. Thor gave it with a matching grin, and Tony had to hide a laugh when he saw Peter surreptitiously shaking a sore hand afterward.
“It does not,” Clint complained, squelching closer with the others on his heels. “That’s got to be cheating. JARVIS, tell them they cheated!”
“I am of the belief that you’ve all been cheating,” JARVIS replied, hovering above them with the suit’s arms crossed over its chest. Tony didn’t bother to hide his smile at the put-0ut tone. “As such, Mr Odinson’s actions seem only fair.”
Clint spluttered– though that also might be due to the balloon Hulk popped over his head, rather than JARVIS’ verdict.
“Oh come on, Hulk! We’re meant to be on the same team!”
“We haven’t been in teams since the start,” Tony pointed out, shooting a glare in Loki’s direction. “It’s been a free-for-all, and you all know it.”
Loki didn’t even seem to notice. He was too busy glaring at Thor. “This fight is far from over,” he spat– and his expression, paired with the way his soaked hair was sticking to his forehead, rather reminded Tony of a hissing alley cat caught in a storm.
“Oh come on, Loki,” Thor said. “I won, fair and—”
“You have not,” Loki growled—
And then he threw out his arms, and—
“Uh, Loki?” Tony said, blinking as a flake of pure cold landed on his nose. “Is it, uh… did you make it snow?”
Loki still did not turn to Tony, but his lips curled into a dangerous smirk. “I assure you,” he said. “It was hardly difficult.”
It was then that Tony realised, it wasn’t just Thor’s rain that Loki had transformed. The water on the ground had frozen solid, the grass now glittering in the sunlight as each blade became coated with frost. Thor’s downpour turned to a flurry, and soon they were stepping in thick snow. Even as the snowfall began to even out, the ground was already coated in white.
“There,” Loki huffed. “Now, everyone can cool down. We can end this battle of water knowing that the true victor is—”
Loki’s words cut off as a pile of snow slammed into the side of his head, much like how Tony had been caught out at the start of the fight. There was no way to identify the culprit, as every one of the Avengers were wearing the same expression—
Well. Everyone except Peter. Even with the mask Tony could tell that his grin was wide enough that it could have split the sky once again, but given that he still had a water balloon in his hand, Tony doubted he was the one to have thrown the snow.
Loki didn’t seem to care that he didn’t know who had done it.
He growled, and raised his hands—
“No more magic,” Peter said quickly, holding up his one empty hand. “Let’s do this properly this time.”
Had it been anyone other than Peter who asked, Tony didn’t think that Loki would have obliged. It had always been something of a sore spot, given how often he used to be accused of cheating on Asgard.
But then Peter finished what he was saying, and Loki’s entire expression softened.
“No more rain for Thor, no more snow for Loki. No webs for me, either. We all fight on equal terms.”
“I like the sound of that,” said Nat. And at the sound of her words, Clint’s previously enthusiastic nodding turned into a suspicious side-eye.
“We all use only our hands to make and throw things,” Peter finished. “All in favour say aye!”
There was a brief moment of silence, wherein the atmosphere read something along the lines of is he actually serious?
But Tony smiled, and raised his hand. This was an opportunity he wasn’t going to miss.
“Aye,” he said, voice half a laugh.
“Aye!” Thor yelled, not a moment later—
And as everyone else followed, Peter looked up to JARVIS—
But before JARVIS had the chance to say a single word, Tony had already launched his first snowball— which slammed right into Steve’s shoulder.
Steve glared– then he grinned, the smile crossing his face like a spark across a wire. “Oh, you’ll regret that,” he taunted.
But before Tony could even formulate a reply—
“Oh really?” Loki asked, his tone dropping into something low and lethal. “Because Anthony has a teammate to help him. Where’s yours?”
Steve glanced to where Natasha had joined Hulk in pelting Clint with frozen projectiles– and then he looked back with a shrug. “I’ll take my chances.”
“Your second chance to be a popsicle, you mean?” Tony replied, exchanging a smirk with Loki.
Steve’s eyes gleamed with the challenge—
And as Tony and Loki worked together to absolutely bury Steve with a flurry of pelting snowballs, he found himself grinning wider than he had in a very long time.