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It was Steve who’d found it first. Following the Battle of New York there’d been an anti-Stark group that had popped up blaming Tony for everything from the damage done to the city, to the government’s handling of the clean-up, to the fact that there’d been an invasion at all. They were noisy, but relatively small in the grand scale of things, and Tony was no stranger to criticism. He hadn’t seemed overly concerned.
Steve, on the other hand, had been extremely pissed off. He had plenty of criticisms of his own for Tony’s methods, but people sending internet death threats (which he’d been assured were different from regular death threats, but still) to someone who had just saved the entirety of New York City left a sour taste in his mouth. And he wouldn’t have been Steve Rogers if he hadn’t set out to do something about it.
He had been on one of his one-man take-down-the-trolls crusades when he’d discovered the anti-anti fringe group, a bunch of people who had, apparently, made it their mission to share all the good that Tony had done.
They even had merchandise.
Steve was immediately a fan, but he also found the whole thing hilarious. He knew how to send links, but it was way more fun to tease Tony in person. So he’d gathered up his whole laptop, not bothering to close it first, and jogged down to the lab where Tony was with Bruce, Nat, and his friend Colonel Rhodes, talking about equipment updates.
Tony looked up with an arched eyebrow. “Good morning, Captain,” he said, pulling Nat’s attention as Bruce and the Colonel kept looking over some schematics. “You’re looking suspiciously gleeful today.”
Steve had had a multitude of ideas about how to reveal his new find to Tony, but all of that went out the window when he was faced with the man. “Did you know about this?” he demanded, and even he could hear the unadulterated joy in his voice as he spun his still-open laptop to face them.
It took a second for Tony and Nat to even focus on what he was showing them, the page having scrolled somewhat, and it was Nat who made out the website header first.
“The Tony Stark Defense Squad?” she asked, mouth twisting up into a shit-eating grin. “Be honest, Stark. Did you start this yourself?”
“Hardy har,” Tony deadpanned, giving her a half-hearted shove before turning back to Steve with a mostly exaggerated look of dismay. “Seriously, where did you find that? I thought we installed filters so nobody here would see them. Right, JARVIS?”
“Apologies Sir,” JARVIS offered, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. “One of the videos must have slipped through.”
“Mmmm,” Tony agreed, sounding utterly unimpressed.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Rhodey said, finally tuning into the conversation. “Is this real?” Despite barely knowing him, he walked over to Steve and took the laptop right out of his hands, shooting Tony a betrayed look as he looked it over. “And you knew about this? And didn’t tell me??”
Tony rolled his eyes as Nat started snickering. “Gee, I wonder why?” he drawled, voice deadpan. Rhodey wasn’t paying attention, shaking his head as he scrolled through the webpage.
“Unbelievable,” he said, apparently talking to the computer screen. “Scuse you, I invented the Tony Stark Defense Squad,” he added in a grumble, and Steve didn’t miss the pleased smile on Tony’s face at that.
“Yeah Honeybear, we all know you’re my number one fan,” Tony teased, his voice all fond. Then he frowned as Rhodey turned to set Steve’s computer up on the worktable, digging out his wallet. “What are you doing?”
“They have merch, Tones. You think I’m going to let this slide?” And then, before Tony could offer up any protest. “Hey, who wants a t-shirt?”
Tony had thought that would be the end of it. He could handle a bit of teasing -- Steve’s enthusiasm was all kinds of adorable -- and then they could all move on with their lives. And sure enough, after a couple days and a truly awful theme song invented by Clint, the whole joke seemed to be forgotten again.
He was rushing down the hall near the communal gym, late for a meeting that Pepper would actually kill him if he missed, when he all but collided into Natasha, calling a hasty apology over his shoulder as he continued down the hall. His mind was going a million directions at once, so it took a minute for his brain to catch up with what his eyes had seen. When they did, he screeched to a halt, brain drawing up a helpful image of her workout tee.
“Nat?” he asked, turning slowly to find her standing a few feet back, waiting expectantly for him to notice. His eyes drifted down, confirming what he thought he had seen, and he scrubbed a hand over his face, groaning into his palm. “Why?”
The t-shirt was violently purple, with bold white lettering screaming ‘Tony Stark Defense Squad’ in a font that was honestly offensive. It was about three sizes too big for her lithe frame and Nat grasped the right side of the hem, holding it out and doing a little swish of her hips like she was some kind of southern belle showing off her latest gown.
“You like it?” she asked with an absolutely shit-eating grin. She glanced down at herself and then did a little pirouette for good measure. The back of the t-shirt had a slightly terrifying rendition of what he thought was his face. “It just got here today.”
Tony couldn’t help huffing a little. “You didn’t even shell out the extra for express shipping?”
Nat just shrugged at him, smile still sugar-sweet. “Have fun at your meeting, Tony.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Tony rolled his eyes as moved past her, giving her a teasing shove with his hips as he went by.
“Don’t you ‘yeah yeah’ me,” she called over her shoulder as he waited for the elevator. “And don’t think I didn’t see that little smile you’re trying to hide, Stark. You know you love my shirt.”
The t-shirt was, hands down, hideous.
But somehow, the trucker hat that Clint showed up in three days later was even worse. Tony was at work, signing off on some proprietary rights contracts that he’d been putting off for the past few weeks. There was a brief commotion outside his office, but before Tony even had a chance to get up off his chair, his door was opening and Clint was sauntering in, Pepper’s secretary’s secretary’s secretary’s assistant coming behind him with a harried looking expression.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. He just kind of burst through.”
Tony waved her off with a smile. “It’s okay, Katie, he’s fine.” She left again, pulling the door shut behind her, and Tony turned his gaze fully on Clint with a suspicious look. “What are you doing here? And what the fuck is on your head?”
“What?” Clint gave him his best innocent look, which made him look guilty as hell. “I was in the neighbourhood, thought I’d drop in. Always wondered what a day at your office would be like.”
Tony arched an eyebrow at him. “You have literally never shown the slightest bit of interest in what I do here.”
“Well…” Clint shrugged and left the word hanging, clearly expectant, and Tony sighed.
“Where’d you get the hat, Clint?” he asked in a falsely cheerful voice.
“Oh this?” Clint looked delighted, taking the hat off to examine the giant TSDS letters with ‘Tony Stark Defense Squad’ underneath in a smaller font. “I don’t know, I just found it in the back of my closet. Think I’ve had it for years. You want it?”
Tony shook his head with a weary look. “No. No I do not.”
“Too bad.” Clint’s grin was absolutely shit-eating. “Everyone in your office loved it. Got tons of compliments on my way up.” He gave Tony a wink. “Movie night tonight,” he added, heading for the door. “Thor’s bringing the pizza.”
Nearly a week later, Tony stumbled in through the penthouse, still damp from the decontamination shower for some Asgardian space goo, and spared a brief grin at the sight of Rhodey on his ridiculously expensive couch before immediately flopping full length beside him, his face landing somewhere near Rhodey’s knee.
“Help me, they’re ruining my life,” he mumbled, the words coming out smooshed around thick denim.
Rhodey patted him consolingly on the back of the head, although he was clearly more interested in the baseball game that was playing on Tony’s ridiculously expensive television. “There there,” he soothed. “It’ll all be okay.”
Tony rolled his eyes as he pushed himself back upright. “You’re a terrible boyfriend,” he grumbled, but he was grinning and it didn’t stop him from stealing a kiss as the inning ended.
“Lies. I’m the best and you know it.” Rhodey elbowed Tony’s side, turning to face him fully. “What’s wrong now?”
“They’re ruining my life,” Tony said again. “Seriously, let’s trade places for awhile. You can be Iron Man, I’ll be War Machine. It’ll be great!” He smiled guilelessly in the face of Rhodey’s arched eyebrow. “I’ll keep the suit on. Nobody would even have to know it’s not you.”
“You couldn’t handle my job,” Rhodey scoffed before poking Tony in the side and making him squirm. “Who’s ruining your life?”
Tony gave a heavy, put upon sigh and folded his arms across his chest. “This Tony Stark Defense Squad,” he grumbled, doing his best to sound all put out, like Rhodey couldn’t see the little blush creeping up his neck that he only ever got when he was secretly pleased about something. He laughed and Tony’s pout got deeper. “Don’t make fun of me,” he protested. “Do you know that Bruce now has a ‘Tony Stark Defense Squad’ yoga mat? I thought he was supposed to be all anti-consumerism, but apparently it ‘doesn’t count’ if somebody gives it to him, and he ‘wouldn’t want to hurt Steve’s feelings.’ And somebody -- I’m blaming Clint -- gave Thor TSDS temporary tattoos, and I can’t tell if he’s trolling me or not, but he’s absolutely covered in them, and now it’s apparently a game to see if he can tattoo people without them noticing.” He pulled up the hem of his t-shirt, revealing the little stylized ‘TSDS’ right above his belly button. “He got me.”
Rhodey cocked his head as he stared. “How--,”
But Tony had already moved on. “They got Pepper, Rhodey.”
Rhodey frowned, confused. “With a tattoo?”
“No! I mean they got to her! She tried to hide it but I saw that little pin she had on the collar of her Very Smart Blazer.” Tony huffed, throwing his head back dramatically, and Rhodey pursed his lips.
“Ah.”
Something about his tone had Tony lifting his head again, eyeing him suspiciously. “Ah? What ah? Why are we ah-ing?”
Rhodey winced. “I’m guessing you don’t want to see this then,” he said, already scrolling through his cell phone. Without another word he passed the device over to Tony, open to a high-res photo. Tony blinked down at it, taking a minute to parse what he was even looking at.
“Oh my god,” he muttered.
There, on a ‘Spotted in NY’ social media page, was a picture of Steve from behind, going on one of his regular runs through Central Park. He was wearing his usual too-small workout shirt, but instead of the normal jogging pants, he had on a pair of what could only be described as booty shorts, the fabric plastered to his ass and displaying TSDS across his cheeks.
“Whyyyyy,” Tony wailed, throwing himself full length across the couch again.
It may have started with Steve, but Rhodey was definitely the one who ended it.
He’d been invited as a guest to some military medal ceremony or something, and while Tony had very clearly not been invited, he was still an awesome boyfriend. He’d called a mandatory team building meeting so they could all watch Rhodey looking all fancy on the big screen in the common room. (There’d been a talk from Steve about the misappropriation of the team-building designation, but that was worth it.)
They were all draped over the couches and chairs, sharing popcorn and drinks and generally having a great time when Tony saw it. Immediately he scrambled to try and turn off the screen, or at least cover it with his body, but Steve had clearly seen it at the same time and wrestled him to the couch just as the camera zoomed in on Rhodey sitting there straight-backed, medals and insignia pinned to his chest.
And right beside them, a TSDS pin in a large, bold font.
“I’m moving to Greenland,” Tony grumbled, accepting his fate and wincing as the camera kept zooming in on Rhodey’s new accessory. “I hate you all.”
“Hey, Tony?”
He looked over to where Clint and Nat were snickering over her phone. “Yeah?”
“You and Rhodes are trending on Twitter.”
Queens, New York
Peter Parker sat in front of his computer, waiting impatiently for it to load. (It was slow, and homemade, but it was his.) May had already called him twice for dinner, but this just couldn’t wait.
A moment later his patience paid off as the Twitter page finally finished loading and there, under trending topics, was ‘TSDS’ and underneath it, ‘Tony Stark’ and ‘War Machine.’
“Yessss,” Peter crowed, pumping his arms in the air and nearly toppling over backwards in his chair in the process. “Another win for the president of the Tony Stark Defense Squad.”