A/N: So Hiya... Follow, Fovourite and Review! The video JARVIS shows them is in Italicsand that's basically all you need to know.

The Avengers were quite familiar with the fact that Tony Stark didn't like being handed things, they all thought it was just him being arrogant, narcissistic and annoying. He let them think that because it was less embarrassing then the truth.

He was deeply engrossed in a science related conversation with Bruce when Natasha put her scheme into action. The other Avengers excluding Thor who was still on Asgard were sitting on a sofa watching Batman The Dark Knight Returns. Natasha walked past Tony oozing casualness which should have been an alarm but Widow knew how to use your subconscious against you and Tony didn't notice as she handed him a metal sphere "Here." She said and Tony took it not realising until about three seconds later, he then yelped and promptly dropped the item as if it were a hot potato while checking his hand over.

"What the heck Natasha!" Tony seemed outraged

"What the heck me? What the heck yourself! What kind of reaction was that?!" Natasha replied slightly worried for the Man of Iron but her expression stayed passive if not a little pissed

"You know I don't like being handed things!" Tony yelled back

"Tony," Natasha went steely calm and professional "That was a lot more then not liking it. It was if you thought it would explode in your face or something."

Tony looked away but mumbled "Knowing you I'm surprised it didn't."

"Oh my god, Tony, you thought it was going to explode in your face." Natasha was shocked at this revelation

"God Natasha! Do you always have to pry into everything! You walk in here with your fake ID and SHIELD skills and act like you're doing the world a great service by keeping the unpredictable Ironman in check but you seem to be forgetting that there are bigger threats out there! In fact shouldn't you be destroying one of those threats right now, you may be an Avenger but you're still a SHIELD agent! Why don't you just leave my life to me and go get a life of your own instead of pretending to be someone else!" He stormed off to the lab and left the Avengers in shock, Tony never snapped.

Clint was the first to talk "Okay what just happened?"

"Natasha I don't think you should have done that he obviously doesn't like being handed things and it seems to be more than Tony being Tony." Steve chastised

Natasha was about to answer when Bruce interrupted "Steve Tony has some sort of mental tick but from what SHIELD knows about him, he didn't have it as a child."

Clint continued "So what happened?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out." Was Widow's only answer "From my time undercover I picked up that Tony accepts stuff from Pepper and Rhodey and I think he even took something from Stane once but he looked like he regretted it immediately."

"So it's a trust thing?" asked Bruce

"Paranoia?" guessed Steve

"But paranoia of what?" questioned Clint

"Tony's a Stark. As a kid multiple attempts to take his life went down before he even turned 10 after that the records at SHIELD are black. Tony or Howard must have wiped them."

"So people have probably handed bombs and stuff to Tony." Concluded Clint

"And the way he checked his hands, acid attacks?" added Bruce

"It would seem we figured out the mystery that is Tony Stark!" Natasha looked happy at this small victory although SHIELD had been trying to get the dirt on Stark for decades so it was a pretty big victory

"Not even close but congratulations." The cool British voice that was JARVIS said down from the ceiling

Bruce's head snapped up "I will never get used to that." He mumbled before asking "J what do you mean not even close?"

"Sir isn't a puzzle that you can simply solve, he is more like a video game you have to unlock the levels and when you think you've finally finished it, it restarts and all data is restarted. You Agent Romanoff have passed Level one."

Okay small victory after all. She sighed and looked at the other three men gathered in the room. Bruce frowned and looked at Natasha "You're not going to tell Fury are you?"

"Well protocol dictates that I should..." She looked at their horrified faces "But if Stark's issues are trust related I can't be running my mouth to Fury." She wouldn't tell Fury not yet anyway. As long as it didn't affect missions

"Agent Romanoff, Barton, Captain Rogers and Dr Banner I have a series of clips from all the times Tony has been handed stuff with disastrous results. Would you like me to play them?"

They exchanged looks until Clint answered "Play it J."

Young Anthony Stark, no older than 6 years old was dressed in a little tux and had ladies swooning over his cuteness at Stark Industries annual Christmas party the room was nicely decorated with banners and tinsel but it wasn't gaudy. I say room when I mean hall. A man who blended into his surroundings as well as a chameleon slipped through the swarm of ladies and separated Tony from them he crouched down so he was Level with his face "Hey Anthony! Do you like tech puzzles?"

"Of course I do! I'm a Stark!" It sounded slightly rehearsed but was said with gusto

"Great because I need a Stark to help me figure this out." He brought out a black metal cube and handed it to Tony

While Young Tony was studying the contraption he backed away and disappeared. The cube started beeping and Tony held it to his ear frowning suddenly a security guard yelled "EVERYBODY GET DOWN!" a wave of panic swept the crowd as they ducked for cover the guard grabbed the cube from Tony and threw it out the window, smashing it in the process. Five seconds later it exploded mid air. Tony was the only person standing besides the guard and he was staring at the window in shock, he had almost been killed.

Another clip showed Tony age 10 he was at school in the cafeteria, he was sitting alone and looked thoroughly depressed which surprised the Avengers, seeing as Stark was such a party boy. He was picking at his food but wasn't actually eating it when a boy maybe a year older than him sat down. Tony looked up shocked and said awkwardly "uuuh... hi Justin."

"Hey Stark." The boy beamed back "I thought you'd want a drink so I got you some apple juice." He held up a juice box

"Really?" the boy nodded "wow, thanks." Tony took the juice box and opened it with the straw, Justin leaned backwards slightly and watched as the box exploded and covered Tony in custard. The whole cafeteria was laughing and a few people had it on video the entire school had seen it within the day.

Justin spat "You stuck up prat! I bet you don't even know what it's like to go without something! All you have to do is ask and someone buys it! You think you're better than us because your rich and smart well your not! So what are you?"

Tony blinked "Genius, Billionaire, Heart Breaker, Funds Raiser. I'm a Stark"

The Avengers realised that that was the first draft of Genius Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist the well known line and basically his catchphrase. Natasha gasped everyone gave her a questioning look "Whenever Tony says that he isn't being arrogant he's using it as a shield he can hide behind, to protect himself from things he doesn't want to hear."

Steve's eyes widened "But he said that to me..." Steve felt terrible "Oh God!"

"JARVIS just play it." Clint couldn't deal with an angsty cap

Justin sneered at him "Like anyone could ever be your friend nerd!"

A few other voices chanted "Dork!"

"Geek."

"Weirdo!"

"Loner! Nobody likes you just go home!"

"Anthony going to cry? Go cry to your mommy!"

"You're such a freak not even your father's money could buy you friends!"

"Are you gonna get your daddy to come deal with us now?" a boy mocked

Some girl with a shrill voice shrieked "Please his father likes him about as much as we do!"

Justin leaned into Tony and hissed "Not even your own father likes you Stark! How does that feel?"

So far Tony had been completely passive as if he were used to it but that last one seemed to send him over the edge, he lashed out at Justin and punched him in the face. When two boys rushed him he kicked one boy in the groin while punching the other in the stomach he then stormed out of the hall covered in custard and seething with anger.

As soon as Tony was away from everyone he ran into the janitor's closet sat down and cried, he stayed like that until the janitor came in. The janitor his name tag read Scruffy took one look at Tony and swiftly shut the door behind him "What happened this time Tony? Alex Mcgory? Dylan Williams? Who was it this time?"

"Justin Hammer. Somehow rigged a juice box to explode custard all over me. Then they jabbed at my father so I punched him right in his stupid face!"

Natasha screeched "THE Justin Hammer!"

"You mean from Hammer tech?!" yelled Clint

"They went to school together?" asked Steve

"It would explain why Tony hates him so much."

The next clip was Tony when he was 15 he was with Rhodey and another guy who's badge read Steve Roger (Which was suspiciously close to Steve Rogers) Tony seemed to be meeting Steve for the first time because he said "So... Your name is Steve Roger?"

"Yeah, my parents are big fans of Captain America and with our surnames being so close it was inevitable." The three boys laughed at his unfortunate name

A woman wearing gloves who appeared to be from the Air Force walked up to them "We need a brain to check the jet."

Tony smirked "Well that's me I better go guys."

"Stark here's the information." She gave him a folder her gloves not being affected but as soon as the folder was in his hand Tony yelled and his eyes widened flashing with pain

Rhodey and Roger raced over "Tony!" they yelled By then Tony had dropped the folder and was staring at his hands in horror as the corrosive acid the folder had been coated in ate away at the flesh on his hands Rhodey grabbed him and started pushing him towards a fountain "Come on Tony! Move!" thankfully they washed off the acid in time and Tony's hands healed, the 'Air Cadet' was imprisoned for the acid attack and Tony never took anything from someone wearing gloves.

"I will now show you the clip when Tony finally stopped accepting things from people. Although there are about 30 other occasions when he does before this clip."

Tony is about 21, just after his parents died he was in some sort of funeral arranging place with Mr Stane and the woman serving them, a blond, placed a form in front of them, she held out a pen and used it to point "Mr Stark just sign here, here and here."

She held out the pen to him and Tony reached out to take it but then recoiled he stared at his hand for a second before patting all his pockets in search for a pen "uum you know what I think I have my own pen."

"But Mr Stark there's a pen right-" The blonde woman started still holding out the pen

"It's okay I got it." Tony pulled out a fancy black pen and then saw the weird look he was getting "It was my fathers and this is his funeral, it felt right to use his pen." He was lying through his teeth but the woman bought it. He signed the document and the screen went blank.

"Wow." Was all Bruce could say

"We learnt a lot about Tony." Said Clint

"Yeah like Tony was a social outcast in high school who's father didn't like him publically enough so that his school knew but hid it well enough so that no one else knew and he went to school with Justin hammer!" Natasha processed the information

"He has major trust issues and he says 'Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist' when he's upset but doesn't want to show it!" Steve was still caught up in that

"Actually." Tony's voice came from behind them and their heads snapped around "I say it when someone questions me or pushes my insecurities."

Clint yelped "Tony! We-"

"Save it Clint I know what you've been doing." He then turned and glared at one of JARVIS' cameras "Watching footage that I encrypted and then deleted and then encrypted the deleted file. So JARVIS how did they view this footage?"

"You never deleted them off my original server only on my updated one." Was JARVIS' reply

"But I shouldn't have to! I synced them!"

"There was an error Sir."

"Well that's convenient." Grumbled Tony

A/N: I'm not good with ending clearly during chapters so yh follow this story or me to see the second chapter!

Disclaimer: Marvel owns all!