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When it comes to brainstorming ideas for new and exciting games the Avengers Family can play to further cement their flourishing bonds, Tony Stark always comes up with what he refers to as “fun” ideas. Those aren’t usually seen as fun just by him, but they tend to go well for him and end up badly for everyone else involved.
Hence, nobody gets excited upon hearing the phrase “I have a fun idea” coming out of Iron Man’s mouth. Although, this time around, the situation will turn out particularly bad for Steve Rogers alone, since Tony’s great plan is to play a game that has the Captain as the sole target of it.
What’s perhaps more impressive is the fact that the engineer somehow managed to rope the rest of the team members into the little competition as well, which has the objective of finding out who can push Rogers’ buttons the furthest. The aim is to get the man’s patriotic side all riled up, almost to the breaking point, if possible. And despite the initial reluctance to take part in such an activity, all the potential participants ended up caving in after Stark’s relentless insistence on the topic.
It all starts with Tony himself, who opens up the “gaming season” by throwing a little “confession” into a casual conversation he’s having with some of his teammates. They are sitting on the lounge, right after finishing lunch, and debating halfheartedly about some slightly political topics. And when Stark sees the perfect opportunity, he chimes in with a comment that, were it real, would probably surprise no one but Steve.
“Oh, yeah, I don’t vote.”
Tony says as seriously as he can, with a deadpan expression and nonchalant shrug of the shoulders, seeing with satisfaction how the Captain trails off mid-sentence upon hearing his words.
Bingo, thinks the billionaire, smug and satisfied.
In response, the Captain can only gape at his friend –stunned into silence and shock for a second– before he launches into a lecture about the importance of the democratic process and how dangerous it can be if citizens give up their say in how the government is run. If all the people present (sans Rogers) weren’t in on the joke as well as Tony, they would be rolling their eyes and groaning in exasperated boredom.
But as it is, they are all intently paying attention to the Cap’s speech, who, in turn, doesn’t suspect anything from all the intense focus directed at him. On the contrary, he revels in it. And at the time, Stark is trying his hardest to maintain a straight face and not to burst out laughing.
Meanwhile, Natasha is covertly timing the rant’s length with her watch, sitting discretely off to the left side and wearing a perfectly composed poker face. She’s doing that because whoever gets the longest speech out of Steve wins a little trophy that Tony made a few days prior to the beginning of the game. Stark’s score ends up being 19 minutes long in total. And just like that, one by one, those who dare withstand Steve’s admonitions, start to make their own little comments to get a rise out of the Captain as much as they can.
Natasha starts a debate about the Cold War, pitting her fake Russian patriotism against Rogers’ honest one, ranging from the Space Race to the “superiority” of Communism over Capitalism. That last one gets Steve on a tangent about the importance of freedom, which brings the rant’s total running time up to 16 minutes.
On a similar topic, but entirely home-based, Sam gets Steve to compare the US Military Service back in the ‘40s to the current system, speaking about how much it has changed and how the downgrades outweigh the improvements. Going on and on about how war used to be about freedom and nowadays it’s just part of the political agenda. That one lasts 17 minutes straight. At that point, they all began to realize why Steve has always been America’s poster boy: he’s all about FreedomTM.
Peter’s approach turns out to be rather confusing since he changes his initial statement midway through the whole ordeal. The kid first cites that he doesn’t sing the National Anthem, only to say a couple of minutes later that he does sing it but doesn’t stand up while it’s being played during school events. Both were lies anyway.
Unfortunately for him, that doesn’t get Rogers as riled up as he hoped, rather earning him a stern lecture about the importance of respecting the National Anthem as well as the American flag. So, Parker’s attempt peaks at only 10 minutes, putting him in the last place on the scoreboard so far.
After the Spiderling’s failed attempt to take the lead, or to get even close to it, it comes Barton’s turn to try for success. And win he does, at least for a while, resulting in a new Avenger holding the winning title. All Clint had to do was manage to convince Steve that he doesn’t pay taxes.
That little “admission” earns him a 21-minutes-long lecture that could almost put him to sleep if it weren’t hilarious witnessing the Captain get so worked up about the importance of abbiding by the law and contributing to the economic system of their country. But despite Steve’s impassionate speech, the archer ends up losing to someone who wasn’t even playing the game alongside the others.
The ultimate winner of the “Let’s Piss Off Steve Until He Put Us to Sleep” contest (an unofficial name coined by Tony) is Blake, who comments about how the compulsory military service and drafting during times of war shouldn’t be allowed. She renounces the first by maintaining that forcing people into something like military training is inhumane –at least from her point of view. And against the second she argues that it’s immoral to force people to fight in a war unless the country they live in were to be invaded.
According to the young woman, people shouldn’t be obligated to put their lives at risk unless there was a direct threat to their homeland and, thus, to their safety and livelihood. That does get the longest lecture from Rogers, given that he has to patiently explain his points to the girl and try to keep calm while at it.
Since she has only been out in the real world for a few years, having previously been born and raised in a hidden facility belonging to a secret intelligence and military organization, he knows that there’s much she doesn’t yet understand about those kinds of issues.
Steve also suspects that her stance on those matters is probably the product of a lack of knowledge and her own distorted worldview since she grew up in a secret lab. So, of course, he is as gentle as possible when speaking to her. In the end, given the chosen topic of discussion and Blake’s missing awareness about context, history, political issues, and more, she’s the one to win the little tournament, ending up with a 30-minutes total score.
Although, the final result is initially contested by Tony and Clint, who were previously in the lead. They try to argue that she wasn’t even actually playing the game, but rather just started a conversation with Steve. Still, the other participants were so amused and touched by the whole affair that they dismissed Stark and Barton’s objections. With the matter resolved, the gang agrees to keep silent about the ordeal. And with that unexpected victory, Blake also makes her boyfriend Bucky uncomfortably proud of her.
Despite being aware of the entire situation regarding the game, Barnes didn’t participate in it, like Wanda and Vision. He tried to shut the idea down at first, out of concern for his best friend’s well-being. But in the end, he just let the others run with it since his own view on patriotism changed a lot through the years.
Bucky just ended up hoping that, perhaps, the cruel game will help Steve in changing his point of view about some things. And even if that wouldn’t happen, at least most of the team would have some harmless fun. No one got hurt, and Steve remained none the wiser. Just another game played by the Avengers Family.