Chapter Text
"Cut it out!"
"You cut it out!"
"Goddammit, Stark, stop the—"
"Don't tell me what to do, birdbrain!" Their voices echoed in the huge dimensions of the training floor in a way that made Steve's teeth itch.
"I'm gonna fucking—"
"Hawkeye, Ironman, front and center. Everyone else, stand down."
Clint had the good grace to look embarrassed as he dropped down from his perch and jogged towards Steve. Tony kept hovering near his assigned position. "Cap, there's no need to—"
"Now, Ironman."
Clint reached him, standing to attention. Steve glared and did not tell him to be at ease. A second later, Tony landed next to them, opening his face plate. "You bellowed?"
"This is the third time this week you two have interrupted training with your mindless bickering. Why exactly do you think your childish arguments are more important than team cohesion?"
"It wasn't my fault, Clint—"
"No way, Stark started it!"
Steve felt his face heat. "Enough!" He rarely lost his temper, but these two were disturbing the entire unit with their nonsense. It wasn't even that they didn't like each other—they got along great most of the time, but sometimes a disagreement would blow up out of all proportion because they were both so dang stubborn and knew how to push every last one of each other's buttons.
Not that Steve wasn't stubborn. He admitted that. He just knew when to rein it in.
Apparently the sight of their team leader getting red-faced and yelling was shocking enough to make even these two shut up. Steve took a deep breath. "I don't give a fig who started it, I'm finishing it." He glared at Tony. "Get out of the armor and hit the showers." He turned to Clint before Tony had a chance to protest. "And you, outside. Five laps around the block."
"What the—" Clint threw up his hands. "How come he gets to shower and I get to run my ass off in 90 degree weather?"
Steve stepped closer, forcing Clint to look up at him. "Because," he said quietly, "you are a SHIELD agent in prime physical condition and he has a heart problem and thirty percent reduced lung capacity." He half expected Tony to protest that he was perfectly fit to run a marathon, but when Steve looked at him, Tony just avoided his gaze.
"Shit," Clint swore quietly. "Sorry, Tony." Tony didn't acknowledge that either.
Clint looked back at Steve with a brisk nod. "Ten rounds around the block. Understood." Steve noted Clint had voluntarily doubled his penance. From the surprised look Tony gave Clint, he'd noticed too.
Before Tony could comment, Steve nodded. "Make sure you take a bottle of water. Shower when you're back, then meet us in the common room. Go."
"Yes, sir." Clint turned and jogged towards the elevator. Nat handed him a bottle of water as he passed her, with a pointed look that made Clint grimace and shrug. She raised her eyebrows and he ducked his head as he continued on.
Steve turned back to Tony. "Go. Shower. Then get upstairs and start peeling potatoes." Sometimes the old discipline methods were the best. Tony wasn't a shirker where manual labor was concerned, but he hated dull tasks, and in Steve's estimation peeling vegetables would bore the genius out of his mind within minutes. Since he needed to learn how to see a task through to the end even if it didn't hold his interest, that was perfect.
Tony sputtered. "Peel potatoes? I don't cook!"
"I'm not asking you to cook, I'm asking you to peel potatoes. With a knife, or one of these newfangled peelers if you must, but by hand. No gadgets. And when you're done with those, do the carrots." Steve figured they could throw in some meat and onions and cook two large pots of stew. With the appetites of the Avengers combined, nothing would go to waste.
"But I—"
"Tony. Natasha and Thor both have vastly more combat experience than you and still they're here, focused on training, and Bruce is participating just on the off-chance that some of it might sink through to the other guy. We would really like to finish without further interruptions."
Tony's mouth snapped shut. He looked at Bruce guiltily. Bruce smiled, but pointedly looked towards the changing room, which contained both the showers and a bot station that could disassemble the armor.
Tony sighed and went without another word.
***
Clint wiped the sweat from his eyes. "You run a tight ship, Cap." He grinned. "I like it."
Steve squeezed his shoulder. "See you upstairs in ten?"
"Give me fifteen?"
"Sure. No rush."
When they got upstairs, they found Tony blazing that awful noise he called music at gunfire volume. Steve asked JARVIS to turn it off. Tony gave him a baleful look but didn't protest.
He had a mountain of unpeeled potatoes in the sink, some peels on a paper towel in front of him, and a much smaller number of peeled potatoes in a bowl. Steve raised an eyebrow.
"I'm going as fast as I can here, okay?" Tony gestured with the peeler and the half-peeled potato in his hand. "This thing is a miracle of poor engineering! I could make a better one in ten minutes."
Steve chuckled. "I'm sure you could, but this one will have to do for now." He gently adjusted Tony's grip on the potato—he was holding it as if he were trying to squeeze out the juice. "Here, try it this way."
Tony nodded thanks and focused back on the task.
When Clint came upstairs, he looked at Tony and his still mostly empty bowl of potatoes and frowned. Then he looked at Natasha, who raised an eyebrow in a way that apparently explained everything, because now Clint looked at Steve and chuckled. "Sorry I doubted you."
Steve waved him off. Tony grumbled something, but without rancor.
"Stark, you're pathetic." Clint started towards the kitchen. "Here, lemme help you so we can eat sometime today."
"No, Clint," Steve interrupted. "That's Tony's job. He doesn't want help."
Tony snorted. "Want, yes. Deserve—" He looked at Steve and grimaced. "Maybe not."
"Clint, get your ass over here and watch this," Natasha yelled from the couch. She had the TV tuned to one of those peculiar shows where people demonstrated how bad they were at various tasks in the hopes of being voted into the next round so they could do it again. "This one says he's a trick shooter."
"Oh, this should be good!" Clint turned towards the couch.
"Wait," Tony said, putting down the potato and opening the fridge. He pulled out a large cup filled with an alarmingly green substance Steve couldn't readily identify. He handed it to Clint. "Made you a smoothie."
Clint took a sip and grinned. "Aw, you remembered my favorite!"
"What? No, I had no idea! The kiwis just needed to go, they were starting to look gross."
Clint chuckled. "Love you too, Stark."
Tony huffed and went back to his potatoes.
Steve didn't bother to hide his smile. Discipline, they could work on. The things that really made a team, they already had.