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Bruce struggled alone. He was feeling hungry for spaghetti and they had all the supplies stocked in the large common kitchen of Avengers Tower. Unfortunately, it required the opening of a jar of spaghetti sauce. Which was not having it. He hadn't had trouble with stuff like this since he was a kid. Luckily, a finely muscled Clint Barton happened upon him in a similar quest for sustenance.
"Whoa there, man. Don't Hulk out. Need a hand?"
Bruce smiled sheepishly. "Yeah. Thanks." He handed it over. "This is a little embarrassing."
Clint tried the lid. "Naw, it's alright. It's all in the grip, I've got big hands so I can-" he grunted, huffed, "-I can-" Clint bent over to get leverage on the jar but it didn't feel easier and the seal didn't break. Surely there were bodily contortions that maximized jar-opening prowess. He could experiment.
"Geeze Barton!" This is why one does not experiment in public. "Get a room. What ya getting friendly with over there?" A Tony Stark walked up to them with a smile of blinding snark.
Clint straightened to reveal the offending jar. Tony choked on his ensuing laughter.
"You ladies need help opening a jar of tomato sauce?"
"It's harder than it looks," Clint deadpanned. Bruce nodded.
"Oh Barton, it's not all about strength, you just need to know how to apply the right tools to solve a problem." He yanked open a drawer and pulled out a thick rubber band. "Observe." Bruce made a soft, "oh" of realization and smiled as Tony snatched the jar from Clint and placed it on the counter.
Tony stretched the band around the jar's lid. "Increase grip, friction, get a solid hold and it'll pop right off without giving yourself a hernia." He gripped the lid and rotated his wrist. The lid refused to budge. "'Course, with difficult problems a little added torque is needed." Tony took the jar from counter and hunched over it to try again. He made slightly obscene noises of exertion. Clint smirked as Tony's efforts began to resemble his own mocked trials.
"I thought you were helping us, big man?" Clint said with a wry smile.
"Shut up," Tony grunted back. He muttered "open damn you" and other expletives to the jar but it remained uncooperative.
"I could just make something else-"
"NO goddammit we are having spaghetti tonight! We will feast on this as soon as I- ARGH!" Tony howled as he lost grip and the rubber band slipped off. He bowled forward and smacked his forehead on the kitchen counter. "DAMMIT!" That was definitely going to bruise.
"Tony, are you al-"
His growl interrupted Bruce's concern. He slammed the jar on the counter and gave it his deadliest glare. "You are getting open."
Clint hazarded an option, "Should we ask…?"
"No," Tony said emphatically. "We're not." He huffed angrily at the immovable jar and crossed his arms to increase the strength of the glare. The hip tilt was unconscious, but it too failed to persuade the container.
Bruce fiddled with his shirt tail. "Strap wrench?"
"Damn straight I'm getting the strap wrench."
-
A strap wrench is a tool used for gripping objects of diameters up to about 6 inches. A thick rubber belt is adjusted to size, looped over the object, and the long lever can be pulled to tighten the strap and apply leverage. Its flexible design mean it can be used on strangely sided or shaped objects, so it's a versatile tool and common in well stocked garages. But it looks damn ridiculous in a kitchen.
"You know," Clint said from his observatory perch on the opposite counter. "We have tomatoes. I could just make the sauce."
"You make good sauce from scratch?" Tony asked absently. He adjusted the rubber loop.
"Hell yeah."
"How long's it take?"
"… 8 hours."
Tony nodded. "A good homemade sauce should take a while, but we're hungry now. Not gonna wait 8 hours. I'll hold you to that at a later date, though." He tested the positioning of the loop around the jar's lid.
Clint moaned in frustration. His stomach growled audibly. "You can't just break it op-?"
"NO!" Tony cut in. "That would be admitting defeat!"
"Fine," Clint raised his hands placatingly. "Use your power tool on food."
"This is a purely mechanical tool, it requires no electrical power." Bruce explained, quite unnecessarily.
Tony waved. "Clint. Get over here. Bruce, stand back." They got into position. Tony instructed Clint to hold the jar still on the counter while he pulled back on the lever to tighten the loop and, hopefully, rotate that damn-fucking-lid off.
With some tense anticipation, more grunts, and the fine principles of physics, the lid popped.
They celebrated with champagne and, of course, spaghetti.
-
2 weeks later Bruce had some trouble opening a jar of honey.
"Fuck it!" Clint ripped it from Tony's failed grip and marched out of the kitchen. Tony and Bruce followed, reluctantly and meekly respectively. Clint led them to the rooftop terrace where Steve was sitting out sketching. He shoved the jar in the quasi-immortal super-strength enhanced perfect soldier's face. "Open."
Steve chucked and set down his supplies to accept it. "No problem."
Clint nodded in satisfaction and turned to address the prideful engineer haughtily, "You see, there is a point at which determination becomes stupid and independence is just a demonstration of ego. We are a team. We can go to one another with problems, even simple problems, and it does not reduce our mutual respect. We-"
"Uh, guys?" Bruce interrupted. "He uh…"
They turned. Steve was staring in shocked silence at the jar.
"… STEVE!"
The jar was open. It had cracked at the joint of lid and neck. Large shards littered the ground, the sketchpad, and a few were sticking out of Steve's head. There was also blood. It spotted the ground, the sketchpad, and was currently getting involved with the honey.
"STEEEEEEVE!"
~
END