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"It has come to my attention," Fury announced, striding into the room where the Avengers were mindlessly playing Mario and steadfastly ignoring him, "that you are all ignorant."
"I know you are but what am I?" Clint hollered back from where he was trying to beat Natasha whilst hanging upside-down with his head off the couch, and failing miserably.
"Children," Fury muttered, shaking his head. "I'm dealing with children."
Once he was gone, Natasha sat up, watching the door to ensure that he wasn't coming back. "You know," she sounded loathe to admit this, "he's right. We have become somewhat...ignorant since we've become used to using our strength to deal with problems. We're forgetting our past."
"And what do you propose we do?" Bruce asked, leaning forwards in something akin to excitement at the prospect of actually doing something even vaguely intellectual.
"How about," Vision mused, "we cement our futures by sharing our pasts?" At the team's confused glances, he clarified, "Share the languages we have picked up on our journeys." To his, and everyone else's, surprise, they all agreed that it sounded fun.
"In the interests of full disclosure, I don't speak any other languages." Peter piped up.
"What do they eve teach you in schools these days?" Bruce complained, and Peter sputtered, desperately defending his ability to do maths.
"Everyone speaks American anyway," Scott continued, ignoring Vision's sarcastic mutters of what a role model he must be to Cassie and Wanda aggressively yelling in his face that there were more countries than just America you idiot.
"What happens if you have to do missions in another country?" Natasha, quite rightly, asked. "Like me and Bucky, we were trained in Russia but we don't just know Russian and English, do we?"
Bucky backed away. "Honestly, I learnt through brainwash, so..."
"I am afraid," Thor announced, cutting through the beginnings of an argument, "that I speak every language without being aware of it, and therefore cannot help you, although I will be happy to watch."
"Do you speak sign language?" Clint asked, and, at Thor's confusion, took his place in front of the group to demonstrate the basics of sign language.
"You mean to say that there are people who speak with not their mouths, but their hands?" Thor sounded intrigued by the idea, though also bemused as to why anyone would do this.
"Tony gave me hearing aids, so I don't have to," for once, Clint sounded genuinely grateful instead of like he was going to make a bad pun, but the moment was ruined as Wanda signed something a little too forcefully and accidentally created a massive explosion of red energy. It was at this moment that Vision told Thor he probably didn't know how to speak binary either, and displaced Clint to teach the makeshift class.
"Who's going to remember this?" Clint groaned, 1s and 0s floating about his head. Scott scrunched up his face in disagreement as Vision attempted to defend his choice by reminding them that it was really very easy as there was no grammar to worry about, with a look on his face that said teaching ants to obey his every command had been easier than this.
"I speak Irish Gaelic?" Steve suggested, and even Tony glanced up in surprise, not sure why he would know such a thing.
"Does anyone even speak that" Pietro asked scornfully, earning himself a hearty slap from Bucky. Steve's smile took on a sad turn.
"My mum taught me," he replied, eyes faraway in the way that they sometimes were when he remembered his past, before shaking himself back to the present and saying, "I don't remember very much, though." He was assisted in his struggles by Bucky, who had apparently sat in on and enjoyed many of the sessions Steve had had with his mother.
"Morse code, anyone?" Bruce asked, and Sam nodded in agreement while everyone else groaned. "Don't be like that," he chided, although he was laughing as he did so, "it's very useful to subtly ask for help, isn't it Sam?" Sam, looking slightly abashed, shrugged and admitted that he only knew SOS.
"That's not comforting," Tony muttered, but Peter merely said,
"If I need help I will scream at the top of my lungs."
"Or punch someone," Natasha joined in. Just as Bruce was about to give up and sit back down, Steve piped up,
"Actually, I know 'I love you'. Might be good to know more."
Natasha and Bucky were next up, having decided to pair up to teach the Avengers some Russian. Bucky hastened to tell them that there were certain words they wouldn't be going over, which the group agreed was probably for the best. Once Natasha and Bucky had attempted to touch on most of the pronunciation problems, the group had a go for themselves.
Tony shivered as Natasha corrected him. "It even sounds dangerous," he commented, to which Natasha raised an eyebrow and asked if he had every heard the Russian lullaby Tili Tili Bom. Once Scott had complained for at least ten minutes straight that all of these languages were making his head hurt, they moved on to Sokovian, since Pietro assured him it was similar enough to Russian that it wouldn't be much of a stretch.
"Not that Sokovia exists anymore!" Wanda muttered bitterly, as Pietro comforted her by reminding her that the language was shitty anyway.
"What do you mean it's a shitty language?" Peter questioned once they had been taught some simple phrases, "it's hot!"
"I agree," winked Sam, and the conversation quickly moved on to the last language, Italian, taught by Tony.
"And why do you know Italian?" Sam asked. Tony muttered something about one of his many nannies, before looking up with a smile plastered on his face and smirking,
"Plus it's suave it suits me."
"I've never been to Italy. Always wanted to, though." Steve commented off-handedly,
"I'll take you," Tony smiled, probably imagining a romantic canal ride or a Lady and the Tramp moment with spaghetti bolegnese, which proved to be a mistake when Thor immediately yelled,
"Team trip!" and rushed off to tell Fury about his magnificent idea.
On the bright side, Fury vowed to never make them do intellectual things again. It was probably safer for the world at large if they were left to play mario, he decided.