“Gear’s outside,” Tony promises, leaning on the table with one hand, fingers splayed. Bruce tries his best to explain the technicalities behind being linked, throwing all sorts of pseudonyms out for it, but it just seems to confuse everyone. Tony lets him finish though, amused at how many times he needs to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

It’s cute. He even says it, but no one takes him seriously. Tony manages to insult and flirt with everyone so much that it’s impossible to really know when he’s being genuine.

“If some of us never meet, at least we’ll all be alive,” Tony says.

He’d rather not know Peter and still have him in this world.

“We know that the Tesseract is the space stone. And we know that the scepter is the mind stone. We have enough information on the former to craft a weapon to destroy it,” Tony eventually continues, only to have Thor drop his axe on the table with a thud.

“Only one worthy may lift this, friend Stark,” Thor boasts. “It is why I must attend to this task with you.”

But Tony shakes his head in response. “Rogers lifted your last sword in the stone just fine,” he says, well aware that there will be shock all around for that.

Steve had been such a good sport, playing it off like he couldn’t move the hammer. But Tony is no fool. And it’s gotten harder and harder over the years to trick him.

Thor turns one blue and one brown eye towards Steve with a frown. “Does Stark tell the truth?”