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This story begins on one fine Sunday when Mr. Steve Rogers purchased a rather large jar. He bought a package of labels and a large sharpie as well. When he got back to the Avengers Tower, he took a label, wrote “SWEAR JAR” on it, and stuck it to the side of the jar. Then, he put it on a side table for everyone to see.
“Rogers, what the fuck is that?” Tony had asked when he saw it.
“A swear jar,” Steve explained simply. “Which you should put a dollar in, by the way.” Tony sighed dramatically. He then took out his wallet, removed a single, and leaned over Steve to get to the Swear Jar.
“Fine. Here you go. One dollar.” Tony said.
Now, whenever a resident of the Avengers Tower heard the call of “Language!” from Steve, a few moments later they also heard the clink of the glass jar. Peter Parker, who was a spectator of these rather funny events, noted that Clint and Tony were the ones called out most often.
But, alas, most adults do swear, and everyone eventually put at least a dollar in the Swear Jar. Even Peter had added a dollar or two to the Jar. But it was truly self-imposed. He hardly ever swore around adults, and if he did, it was a “Damn!” or the occasional “Shit!” that had slipped out by accident. But, since the appearance of the Swear Jar, that hardly happened anymore.
This went on for about a month before The Incident, as Peter called it.
Peter had been working in the lab with Tony. They were working on their own projects but they enjoyed each other’s company, so they worked in the same lab. They had been working for a while when Tony leaned back in his chair and sighed.
“You want something to drink, kid?” Tony asked.
“Sure,” Peter said. “How about a coke?”
“Sure thing,” Tony said and promptly left.
Peter was unfazed by Tony’s abrupt exit and went back to working on his project. A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door.
“Tony?” Peter looked up. It was Steve. “Oh, hi, Steve,” Peter greeted him. “What’s up?”
“Is Tony here?” Steve asked. Peter shook his head.
“No, he just left. You can stay, if you want to, though.” Peter indicated to an area next to him where Steve could sit.
Steve sat, and Peter went back to his work. They sat there in silence for longer than Peter would have expected. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Steve flipping through papers and poking various parts and tools. Peter didn’t mind, but he wondered if Tony would. When will he be back? Peter thought.
Then, all of a sudden, Peter was ripped from his thoughts by a sharp yell.
“Fuck!”
Steve was sucking on his finger. He took it out of his mouth to look at it.
“Fuck, that hurt,” he said, quieter this time.
Peter realized in that moment that he had a decision to make:
1) Confront Steve now, make him deposit a few dollars to the Swear Jar, and tell everyone
2) Don’t say anything and use this as blackmail
Peter went with option number 2.
“What happened? Are you okay?” he asked Steve. Steve looked at him and they made eye contact for just a moment.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just got a paper cut.”
“Oh, that sucks. Do you want a Band-Aid?”
“Sure.”
There is actually another Incident that Peter would rather not talk about. In his mind, this is dubbed The Moment.
Peter and Steve had been helping some SHIELD agents move some things from one side of a building to the other side. One of those things just so happened to be a fridge. The agents expressed that they would feel a lot better if Peter and Steve carried it together, even though both of them could hold it by himself.
They were squeezing through one of the narrower doorways when Peter caught his hand between the fridge and the doorway.
“Fuck,” he swore quietly. Peter let go of the fridge with that hand and shook it out.
Before Peter could grab onto the fridge again, he made eye contact with Steve. Just for a moment. And when Steve didn’t call him out, he realized Steve had made the same decision he had made.
“Are you okay? What happened?” Steve asked.
“I caught my hand between the fridge and the door,” Peter explained.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
This arrangement continued for around a month and a half, where Steve and Peter felt comfortable swearing when they were alone together, but kept the secret when they were around others.
The only thing that threatened this secret, was Bucky Barnes.
Bucky Barnes had been on a mission in California for the past two months and was finally allowed to come back to New York. When he walked into the common room in the Avengers Tower, one of the first things he spotted was the Swear Jar. Peter watched him eye it for a few minutes. Finally, Bucky caved.
“Steve?” he called.
“Yeah, Buck?” Steve called back.
“What’s this?” Bucky asked, his voice sounding like a parent that had just discovered an impromptu mural.
“...It’s the Swear Jar. See? It’s got a little label on it,” Steve explained, indicating the label on the front.
“Ah, I see,” Bucky nodded condescendingly. Peter watched him from across the room and came to a realization: Bucky knew that Steve had the dirtiest mouth out of all of the Avengers, but he decided to use it as blackmail, just as Peter had.
About a week later, Peter decided to organize another video for the Avengers YouTube channel that he ran, called Miscellaneous Inc.
The video begins with this opening card, reading: miscellaneous inc.
It’s animated with sparkles. The sparkles come and leave out of sync.
[cut]
Some of the Avengers are sitting in a circle. They each have a whiteboard. Someone speaks:
“I swear to god, Clint, nobody’s forcing you to do this!”
[cut]
Peter Parker is sitting on his bed, criss-cross applesauce. He waves at the camera.
“Hey, YouTube,” He greets the audience. “It’s me, Peter, saying hello to you on this fine Wednesday afternoon. Today, I have somehow convinced a whole bunch of the Avengers to play ‘Who’s More Likely To’ with me! I honestly don’t know how I convinced them to do it, but I did. Anyway, I asked you guys to ask some ‘Who’s More Likely To’ questions on Twitter, and I went through them! FRIDAY’s gonna read them out, though, so if you put emojis it might sound a little weird.”
[cut]
Peter, Tony, Steve, Bucky, Clint, Natasha, Sam, Wanda, and Vision are sitting in a circle, each equipped with a handheld whiteboard and a pen.
“Hi, camera!” Peter waves to the camera, mostly to make sure everyone else is aware of it. “You may notice that we are a few Avengers short. I promise, they are not dead. These are the only people I could convince to play with me. So far, that is. Should everyone introduce themself?” Peter asked and looked around the circle. Nobody really gave a definite reaction.
“We’ve all been on your channel before, yes?” Wanda asked.
“I guess…” Peter said.
The video froze and became a bit dimmer. Suddenly, names and arrows appeared on the screen, going around the circle, each appearance being noted by a small ding.
← Tony Stank (Iron Man)
← Peter Parker (me :D)
← Steve Rogers (Cap)
← Bucky Barnes (the coolest)
← Clint Barton (Hawkeye)
← Natasha Romanov (Black Widow)
← Sam Wilson (Falcon)
← Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch)
← Vision (Vision)
“Peter,” Peter said to the camera. “Do something cool during editing. A message came up on the screen: “I got you ;)”
[cut]
“Okay.” Peter clapped his hands. “Let’s get started. To reiterate, this is the ‘Who’s More Likely To’ Challenge. How you play is basically, a question is asked, like, ‘who’s more likely to land an arrow in the bullseye on the first try'. Then you write down who you think would be more likely to do that and then we all compare our answers. Does that make sense?”
Everyone nodded their heads.
“Great. FRIDAY, please read the first question.”
“Who’s more likely to say something they’re not supposed to in front of the press?” FRIDAY’s disembodied voice said.
Everyone wrote on their whiteboards for a few moments.
“Okay, let’s see your answers,” Peter said and turned around his board. Everyone followed suit. There were quite a few answers. The two most popular were “me” (“That’s not an answer, you guys,”) and Peter.
“Next question!” Instructed Peter.
“Who’s more likely to break something and leave it for the next person to fix?”
The most popular answer for that one was Tony.
Who’s more likely to accidentally knock someone out?
Steve.
Who’s more likely to keep saying “one more try” on a trick shot?
Sam.
Who’s more likely to have a weird secret habit?
Clint.
Who’s more likely to tip off a metal detector by accident?
Answers evenly split between Natasha and Bucky.
Who’s more likely to swear the most?
Peter had been waiting for this one. He curated the questions so he knew this one would show up eventually. He saw Steve and Bucky make eye contact. He watched as Bucky turned toward him and looked him straight in the eye. It was as if he was saying, “Now is the time to break our silence.”
“Turn your boards!” Peter instructed. They all did. Apart from Peter and Bucky, the most common answers were Tony and Clint.
“Steve?” Tony asked. “Peter, did you hear the question? They said the dirtiest mouth.”
“Yeah, I know. Bucky, you can back me up, right?” Peter looked to Bucky for someone to back him up.
“I only have my word, kid,” Bucky said solemnly.
Then Peter remembered.
“Hold on, actually. I have something. FRIDAY, show me that day Steve and I were in the lab together!”
FRIDAY rolled the clip. Then, everyone was able to see the true Steve Rogers. They were all shocked, to say the least. Steve sat there with a dumbstruck expression, as if he wasn’t sure what to do with himself.
“So what do you have to say for yourself, Capsicle?” Tony asked him.
“Uh...I’m sorry?” Steve tried.
“You’re damn right you’re sorry!” Clint yelled playfully. “I’ve lost at least $100 to that damn Swear Jar! Speaking of which, what do you do with all the money?”
Steve stalled for as long as possible, but it was inevitable. He would have to tell them.
“I spent it on art supplies and ice cream.”
“You did what?!”
[cut]
Peter was back on his bed. He waved to the camera again.
“Thank you guys so much for watching! I can try and convince them to do this again sometime if you’d like! See you next time!
The video ended. Peter turned off the camera.
“Steve is going to kill me…”