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It starts, as so many of these things do, with Clint.
Avenging is one of those jobs where there are moments of pure adrenaline rush and long hours of boredom. Saving the world comes in measured doses, thank God, and that means days and weeks of paperwork, training, and hanging around, just in case. Most of them find ways to deal with it -- knitting, surprisingly, is very popular and there’s a lot of scarves and afghans in the Tower -- whether it’s a hobby or volunteering or learning new things. Steve has powered through all the history and art on Masterclass, moved on to taking classes at Columbia and NYU, and has picked up drawing and painting again. Bruce meditates, reads technical journals, and is on a quest to find the best tacos in the city. Natasha reads pretty much anything including crappy spy novels that she treats as comedy; she practices with the New York ballet to keep up her dancing skills. Thor’s on a ‘learn about Midgard’ tour which, for the most part, includes drinking and eating his way across the continents with Jane and Darcy at his side.
Clint doesn’t do well with downtime. He watches everything and anything; eats his weight in pizza; shoots on the range; lets Natasha beat him up on a regular basis; pines over his unrequited love for Phil Coulson; runs obstacle courses; and sleeps a lot. But after a few days, he gets an itch to do something, anything, different, and that’s when things go sideways. Not that he always makes bad choices, but it happens enough that Jarvis has a “Barton’s bored” alarm.
So when Clint stumbles upon the PR office one night while exploring the Tower (the vents are wide and clean and he’s pretty sure Tony has replaced them since Clint moved in) and finds the list of appearance requests (hey, if the password is that easy to figure out, they deserve to be hacked), he shoots off an acceptance at 3 a.m. in the morning and goes back to his apartment to pet his dog and see if there’s any of the allmeatzza pizza left in the fridge.
After the lectures (Phil and Pepper and Steve) about proper protocol and rules existing for a reason, somehow Clint’s appearance on The Hot Wings Challenge was booked and he found himself in a small studio, sitting on a stool, facing Sean Evans and a line of ten bottles and chicken wings.
“I’m a big fan,” he tells Sean. “I’ve seen all your episodes.”
Sean smiles, clearly pleased. “Wow, an Avenger is a fan. That’s humbling.”
“Nah,” Clint waved him off. “You ask the best questions. Pretty sure I’m not gonna get the ‘what’s it like to be the normal guy on the team’ today.” He used finger quotes around the word normal.
The first four sauces were easy; he’d eaten street food around the world and liked a bit of burn. In fact, one of the questions was about an old interview he gave where he talked about his love of pizza; Sean asked him what made a perfect slice and Clint really enjoyed thinking about the answer. Sauces five, six, and seven got progressively harder, hanging in the back of his mouth or a slow burn that took longer and longer to go away. But talking about his charity to help orphans and foster kids go to college made it worth it.
Then they hit Da’ Bomb. He really had watched the show and knew this was the one that threw most people.
“You ready?” Sean asked.
“No.” Clint laughed and shook his head. “But that’s part of the job, facing down new challenges.”
The heat hit his tongue and then burned through his throat with a fiery intensity that made his eyes water. He coughed as the citrus stung his nose and the metallic tang almost made him gag.
“Oh, God.” He tried drinking water but it didn’t help; the terrible taste didn’t go away. “Jesus, I thought … it can't be that bad, but it is.”
“Yeah, it’s a surprise.” Sean chuckled. “So, you’re quoted in Dr. Samson’s Under the Big Top: The History of American Circuses as saying the circus is a liminal space that speaks to the foundations of what makes us human. How do you compare the circus to being part of The Avengers?”
“Wow, wow, okay.” He tried more water, but the burn was still there. “There’s a level of make-believe that we engage in …” He coughed and finally gave up, reaching for the milk and downing half of it in one long swallow. Then he laughed through his tears. “There you go, the answer to being the normie on the team; know your limits. Anyway, we’re all performing our lives …”
The last two were hot, but after Da’ Bomb, they weren’t nearly as hard as he expected.
The episode, once posted, nearly crashed the YouTube channel. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to watch an Avenger eat spicy wings. So, of course, they issued an open invitation to any of the others who wanted to try the challenge.
Thor was the first to step up to the plate, er table. He showed up in jeans and a Pikachu sweatshirt and admitted spice levels in Asgardian food were practically non-existent. Still, he made it through the first seven, clearly enamored with the new flavors and how the sauces reacted in his mouth. He answered questions about who would win in a fight, Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, or Charmander (they had to edit down his more than five-minute analysis of battle strategy) and his love of the Drop Kick Murphys.
Then he hit Da’ Bomb, and the hoodie came off, his plain grey Under Armour tee showing sweat stains. Still, after a minute of watery eyes and long drinks of water, he was delighted by the question about Norse mythology he’d been reading and which of the tales was the closest to truth. The story that followed about Thor cross-dressing and Loki bespelling an adversary into believing Thor was his blushing bride quickly trended with all kinds of gifs and screenshots of Thor’s head thrown back in raucous laughter.
He quickly killed the last two, thanking Sean for such a great warrior’s challenge.
Tony, of course, had to be next. He researched scoville resistance and the ingredients of all the sauces and came up with a number of strategies for how to beat the heat. In one of his trademark suits, Converse sneakers, and designer shades, he rolled through the first four, assuring the host that his scientific plan was going to put the other Avengers to shame. The questions about clean energy and artificial intelligence were right up his alley and he hit them out of the park.
He teared up on the Spicy Shark Mako Snake, the sixth, and went for plan A, small sips alternating with quick inhales through his nose. At the seventh, he lost his glasses, using a cool, aloe gel wipe on his forehead and temples. When the time came for Da’ Bomb, he’d already broken out the spearmint eucalyptus lip balm.
It was bad. He coughed and drank water and wiped his face and smelled the cooling scent and, still, the back of his throat felt like he’d swallowed fiery motor oil.
“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth,” he said. “And that’s saying quite a bit. Isn’t this where Legolas broke down ?”
Still, when Sean asked him about his interview in Rolling Stone magazine where he declared that heavy metal music was the food of the gods, Tony was so caught up in thinking about the perfect song to make everyone love the genre that he got past the burn and picked up number 9, making it one more than Clint did before he drank some milk.
Of the three Avengers left, it was Bruce who stepped up next; unlike the public persona of the quiet mousy scientist with an angry alter ego, Bruce had a sense of humor and a love of learning about new cultures. With Clint (with his special Hulk sleepytime arrow) and Thor (who could divert the Hulk’s attention) in tow, Bruce settled onto the stool and cracked a self-deprecating joke about the green sauces on the table. One of the first questions was about his love of curry and Bruce launched into a scientific lecture about the differences in heat levels in various cuisines and why he could love Indian food, but not have a high tolerance for ghost peppers.
He plowed through the first seven, enjoying talking about new breakthroughs of using gamma radiation in cancer treatments and his favorite Hulk meme (the one with the kittens behind the dumpster). When he hit Da’ Bomb, his eyes watered and his cheeks flushed.
“It’s not the heat, it’s the mix of flavors. It’s like they set out to make the worst-tasting hot sauce ever to use for pranks on people you don’t like,” he said as he reached for his almond milk. He lifted it up in a toast to the camera. “Best thing about being the strongest Avenger is I’ve got nothing to prove.”
He spent the last few minutes after the tenth sauce talking about Doctors without Borders and asking for donations. Over $4 million was raised in one weekend for the charity, and Bruce ordered the complete set of sauces to put in the cabinet in the communal kitchen.
Steve was next. He wasn’t thrilled about it, but he’d liked the questions the host had asked the others and was talked into it to help offset the property damage from the latest HYDRA base takedown. So he showed up a week later in the studio in another of his ridiculously tight Under Armour shirts and khaki pants. From the get-go, he admitted he wasn’t a fan of spicy things but, like the leader he was, had to do this as part of team bonding.
He was bright red by the fourth sauce. Not just on his cheeks, but all over, his pale Irish skin flushed. As he answered the question about his profile in the Advocate and why people believe gay people didn’t exist in the 40s, he drank two glasses of water, chewing on the ice while a crew member filled his cup back up. The sixth made him drop his head on the edge of the table and start laughing at himself; his sense of humor came out even further as he talked about his dream baseball team and how it would be a zombie league.
Da’ Bomb was the worst.
“I punched Nazis,” he said as he hesitated. “I can do this.”
Captain America, it turns out, ugly cries.
He can also drink four glasses of milk in under 30 seconds
But he could still wax poetic about how amazing Peggy Carter was, doing everything the men did but in heels and with much more aplomb. And he had an iron stomach, finishing the challenge even though he could barely talk between deep breaths and wiping his eyes with his handkerchief.
Last, and absolutely not least because to even suggest that would be to invite a world of pain, was Natasha. She wore a little black dress with her hair a riot of curls and perched on her stool with her legs crossed, Manolo Blahnik pumps on her feet. As she took dainty bites, she talked about the idea that boys don’t want female action figures and laughed when Sean asked her about Clint’s assertion that she was “a wizard with crochet needles.” Cool and calm, she got all the way to Da’ Bomb before she showed even the slightest hint of discomfort.
“You know,” she drawled as she fanned herself. “In Russia, spicy is horseradish, garlic, onions, and peppers. This is not the same.”
One lone tear ran from the corner of her eye and she flushed, making her cheeks rosy.
The last question was about Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and the future of ballet, and Clint could see the pleasure in her eyes as she spoke of her beloved Bolshoi. She didn’t tell Sean she’d met both of the men and even danced with Nureyev; her longevity was still a secret.
That would seem to have been the end of it, and it was, at least for the cameras.
Three days after Natasha’s episode was posted, Tony decided to order wings for their after-battle feast, as Thor called it. He put out all the sauces and they gravitated to their favorites, Clint going with the Crabby Shack Zesty Lemon Pepper for his own dozen. Steve stuck with the store’s garlic parmesan while the others mixed and matched the lower-heat ones. Da’ Bomb stayed exactly where it was, no one even glancing its way.
Until Phil came in, late as usual from clean-up and liaisoning with S.H.I.E.L.D. and other agencies. He sat down by Clint who passed over his share of wings and wedges, and grabbed the squat bottle, liberally pouring it over his chicken.
“Phil,” Clint tried to warn him, but he took a healthy bite before Clint could get another word out.
Silence fell across the table, everyone waiting for Phil’s reaction.
Phil took a second bite.
Bruce slid the gallon of almond milk across the table.
After the third bite, Phil looked up.
“We’ll debrief at 19:30 in conference C,” he said, then cleaned a smudge of sauce off his lip with his finger and licked it clean. “Paperwork is due by 900 tomorrow morning.”
“How the hell …” Tony muttered. He picked up the bottle, sniffed it, and then immediately had to wipe his eyes.
“He eats gas station sushi and thinks it’s good,” Natasha said before popping a potato wedge in her mouth. After she chewed and swallowed, she smiled. “Clint thinks it’s sexy.”
“I don’t … I mean I do, but not … Jesus, Nat,” Clint complained. “Just out a guy, why don’t you?”
“It’s time, Yastreb. Enough of the mating dance.” She arched an eyebrow at Phil. “I’m tired of the posturing and preening, Phil. Remember the stinky tofu incident.”
“It did taste like bleu cheese, but the odor was terrible,” Phil replied. A tiny trickle of sweat was beading on his hairline.
“Wait, you’re eating that to impress me?” Clint’s eyes widened. “That is hot as hell, Phil.”
“Well, it is hot,” Phil chuckled, “but really not that bad. I don’t see what all the complaints are about.”
“Marry me.” The words fell from Clint’s lips before he thought about it.
“Let’s start with a date,” Phil countered. “Maybe Mexican or some curry.”
Sometimes, it turns out, making decisions while bored can lead to really good outcomes and even better ways to fill Clint’s downtime.