Mugs Are A Problem (I Do What I Want)

by JAWorley

Summary:

It’s not usually a problem. Tony doesn’t usually have to work so hard to hide it because Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey know. He can be himself around them. Right after the compound had been built, Tony had been worried about moving in with the Avengers full time… worried they’d notice his tics and figure out his secret. Then Germany had happened and the team had split up before they could fully move into the compound. Tony had had two years where he hadn’t needed to worry about it. Now that the Rogues are back and are living in the tower full time, it’s on his mind again and stressing him out. The problem? Coffee mugs. Well… coffee mugs, and other things and the fact that when he’s stressed out, the tics get worse. But mainly coffee mugs. Coffee mugs are the bane of his existence.
OR
Tony has Tourette Syndrome and he doesn’t want the Avengers (or Peter) to find out about it. The newly returned Avengers think Tony is just being a jerk when he knocks things off of tables and counters, because they think he’s doing it on purpose. Despite the angsty summary, this is all about the team coming back together and Tony learning that the people in his life can’t accept him as he is until given the chance to know him as he is.

Chapter 1: It Was An Accident

Notes:

Note: I'm finished writing this story, and I will be posting up one chapter every two days until all four chapters are posted.

What you’re in for: Angst with soft, sappy moments.  Tony centric with minor Iron Dad scenes and moments (Iron Dad is here in the background (and includes a couple fluffy moments with Tony and Peter), but is not the focus of the story).

Backstory info: In this fic, while the Avengers were getting ready to move into the compound together before Civil War, they hadn't actually lived together or spent that much time outside of missions together.  This fic takes place almost two years after Civil War.  SHIELD is still a thing and hasn't fallen yet.

Warning: There is cursing scattered throughout, especially in Tony’s thoughts.  Descriptions of someone trying to deal with Tourette Syndrome and tics, and trying to hide their true self/having a negative opinion about themself.  Descriptions of Howard's A+ parenting (and him not knowing or caring how to deal with a child that has a disability/neurological disorder).  Mentions of past physical bullying and descriptions of the canonical violence in Civil War.  Description of one 'almost' incident of physical violence that is stopped before it happens.  I really don't want anyone to get triggered here, so please read at your own risk.

Also, gonna let you know now, there are a couple hecka long author's notes in this fic with information about TS, starting right now.

Please Note:

I've done my best to handle this story and this topic with care, but there may be potential inaccuracies when describing Tourette Syndrome.  I do not have TS, but have known quite a few people that have TS, have done a lot of research and spent a lot of time learning about it for my degree and also learning about it for the people in my life.  Someone I'm very close to has TS and successfully hid it from their household for 12 years (and from other people for their entire life before that) because they were embarrassed about it and worried about what people would think of them.  I also have another family member who has a tic syndrome, but is not quite diagnosable as TS.

All of this is to say, I’ve done my best to describe how Tony might feel having TS based on what I’ve been told by various people that are in my life that have it and from what I've researched, and I’ve done my best to research (especially watching and reading things from people that have TS) so I can try to describe things accurately.  It’s important to know that TS is a spectrum and presents differently for almost everyone that has it, so what one person experiences is not what the next person who has it experiences.

There’s a little more information about various types of tics in the end note of chapter 1 (many people think Tourette's is just twitchy movements or screaming curse words, but that's far from the truth, as there are so many different types of tics that can come up with it).  There’s no spoilers in the end note if you want to skip down there and read about types of tics before you start the story.

“You’re a monkey in a freaking circus Anthony, is that what you want to be?  Is that what you want for your life?  What is this?  Am I running Howard Stark’s freak show?  Should I start charging money to have people come see my son flailing around and knocking things down?”

Howard has been dead for 20 years, but his words still rattle around Tony’s mind from time to time.

Freak show… monkey that belongs in a circus.  Tony has heard worse than that from other people, though not usually about his bizarre mannerisms.  The media has called him a slew of unfriendly names over the years.  At some point he’d stopped looking at the tabloids and magazines altogether.  He had stopped watching the news too, or at least where it concerns him.  He has FRIDAY filter out all things involving Iron Man or Tony Stark so that stories about him don’t reach him to begin with.  Over the years, people he’s encountered have come up with some doozies when it comes to names for him.

He doesn’t think about those names though.  He thinks about Howard getting mad at him for knocking a cup of milk off of the dinner table.  He thinks about Howard storming into the school when he was in the third grade and hauling Tony out by his ear because he’d thrown a pencil on the floor that the teacher had handed him and he had been sent to the principal’s office.  He thinks about Howard describing him and his ‘defiant’ behaviors to the headmaster of his first boarding school, to ensure they knew what they were getting themselves into.

"Let them run the freak show for a while Maria," Howard had told his mother as they walked away from Tony, leaving him on the front steps of the boarding school at nine years old.

Tony knows he’s not a freak.  He knows he’s not part of a freak show.  It had taken him some time to figure out what the hell was wrong with him… or more accurately, Rhodey had figured it out a few weeks after Tony had been sent to MIT at 15 and been put in the same dorm room as him.

He’s not a freak.  He’s not a monkey.  He has Tourette Syndrome.  He knows that, but when he thinks about it… thinks about his mannerisms and the few little things that he can’t stop himself from doing, Howard’s words come back to him.  “I’m trying to build an empire Maria, I can’t have the press getting wind of all of his defiant behaviors.  If they find out, everything I’ve worked for could crumble.”

Howard is dead, and Tony isn’t a freak, but he’s always worked to keep his tics under control, or hidden away.  He doesn’t tell people and does his best to prevent his tics from coming out, or to explain them away when they do.  The only reason Pepper and Happy know is because Rhodey had made it a point to tell them, despite that Tony had asked him not to.  “Tony, I care about you man.  You’re like my little brother.  It’s best if they know.”  Tony had been angry with him about it then, but Rhodey had been right.  Rhodey had been one of the few people in his young life that he knew without a doubt cared about him.  Rhodey, his mother, and Jarvis.  His mother and Jarvis had been gone… long dead by the time he’d hired Happy, and then two years later Pepper, but Rhodey had wanted to ensure that the people Tony surrounded himself with understood him and didn’t think he was odd.

For the most part, no one thinks Tony is odd.  He’s worked hard to ensure that things stay that way.  He only has a few tics now as an adult, and all involve his hands (thankfully he'd lost the tick he had as a child where he used to repeat the word 'freak' under his breath again and again), and he’s come up with a lot of great ways to ensure that his tics don’t come out when least expected.

"What is this?  Am I running Howard Stark’s freak show?"

No dad, Tony thinks on occasion.  I run my own freak show now.

* * *

He only has a few tics… they’re little things really.  He’s always had them, ever since he could remember.  Meeting Rhodey at 15 and having him figure out what Tony’s little oddities are had been a Godsend.  After Rhodey had told him he thought that Tony had Tourette's, Tony still felt like he should do everything he could to hide his tics, but Rhodey had made him feel like he was normal for once, and not a freak that belonged in a circus.  “Don’t worry about it man.”

“How can I not worry about it?  I knock shit off of tables and throw stuff down.”

“Yeah, but not all the time, right?”

“Most of the time,” Tony mumbled.

“Ok so, what is it about the stuff you’re knocking down?  The book from the library said it’s involuntary, right?  There’s not anything you’re thinking about when you do it?”

“It’s not exactly like that,” Tony said, “I can control it sometimes.”

“Really?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Try anyway.”

Tony sighed.  “If nothing’s on a table, I’m good.  If five things are on a table, I’m good.  Just one thing though?  It has to go down.  I can’t help it.  One thing can’t be there by itself.”

Tony and Rhodey had been in an intro to engineering class together, and Tony had sent Rhodey’s water bottle hurtling off the table in the middle of the lecture, sending it clattering to the floor earlier that day.

“Just one thing on the table bothers you,” Rhodey said.

“It doesn’t bother me, it just- my brain feels like it itches, or like it’s on fire or something if there’s just one thing there.  My hands too.  I have to knock it down.”

“Ok… but you said not if there’s more than one thing.  How about setting something else on the table next to it instead of knocking it over?”

Tony has figured out a lot of little ways around his tics since then, but Rhodey had come up with most of them that first year they’d spent together at MIT.  Rhodey might not be a genius when it comes to computers or engineering, but when it comes to helping Tony, he almost always knows what to do.

If Tony is handed something, he throws it on the floor.  He doesn’t know why.  It doesn’t matter if it’s something he wants to be handed or not, it goes on the floor.  So Rhodey had come up with the idea for Tony to just not accept things at all that are handed to him.

“Right, awesome,” Tony said.  “That’s gonna go over real smooth when my dad tries to hand me something.”

“Better than it being thrown down though, right?”

“What do I even say to people when they try to hand me something?”

“How about, I don’t like to be handed things,” Rhodey said in a voice that made it clear he thought it was obvious.

Since then, “I don’t like to be handed things,” has become one of the little ‘eccentricities’ that makes Tony who he is.  He would rather be handed things than having them be set down on a table for him to pick up, but he would also rather not throw things he’s handed on the floor.  Howard had always said he was odd… a freak for throwing things down.  Telling people he doesn’t like to be handed things, and then owning it, like he’s not bothered by it at all makes him ‘eccentric’, at least to those that don’t really know him.  Pepper and Happy don’t mind accepting things for him when they’re with him, and then setting them down for him later.  There have been a few times when Tony isn’t thinking about it, that Pepper accepts something from someone, and then hands it directly to him and he manages to hold onto the items.  The few times it’s happened, it’s surprised him and Pepper both.  Then again, last Saturday she'd handed him a granola bar, not thinking about it and he'd sent it flying, so, there’s that too.

Not being handed things is easy enough, and when he can't get out of accepting something that someone wants him to take and he throws it down, he pretends like he dropped it.  "Huh, look at that, wonder how that ended up down there."

Other things are harder to explain however.  All of his tics revolve around his hands.  He has no idea why.  He's done a lot of research about Tourette Syndrome over the years, and knows there are a wide variety of ways in which tics can manifest.  He doesn't currently have any verbal or facial tics that he's aware of, just weird little things he feels compelled to do with his hands.

For instance, he's not a germaphobe, but people think that about him when he shakes their hand and then immediately wipes his hand down the side of his pants like he's trying to wipe germs away.  Ok, so maybe he's a germaphobe sometimes, but that has nothing to do with the hand wiping thing.  His hand just feels wrong, after shaking hands with someone, which is odd because holding hands is just fine.  Over the years Tony has offended a lot of people after a handshake, so now he just doesn't shake at all if he can help it.  He keeps his hands behind his back or in his pockets if he senses a 'hand shake situation' coming up.  Sometimes he offends people by not shaking their hands, and they think he's a jerk, or too good to shake hands with them.  That used to bother him, but people will think what they want to think about him no matter what, and he'd rather be seen as a little pompous than as a freak, or a germaphobe.  Sometimes he has to pick and choose his battles.

The last thing he does with his hands is the biggest one, or at least, it's become his biggest tic since he's figured out how to deal with the other two.  He knocks shit down.  All the time.

Pepper doesn't mind, and Happy has gotten into the habit of not setting singular items on flat horizontal surfaces so that Tony doesn't feel compelled to knock them down.  

Rhodey on the other hand likes to cause chaos, so when he comes to visit, he sets things down all over the house just for Tony to knock over or knock off of counters. "Pretty sure this is what cruelty looks like," Tony had told him a few years back when he'd come out of his bedroom to find a water bottle sitting on the coffee table with nothing else around it, a plastic cup on the kitchen counter, and a single pen on the dining table.

"Tones, you live for chaos as much as I do.  I think you like knocking shit down when you're alone.  You can't do it anywhere else, might as well have fun with it in your own home."

Tony always knows when Rhodey has been through or if Rhodey has come for a visit even before he's found him napping in a guest room, because there will be an abundance of things to knock down scattered around the penthouse.  And if Rhodey is sleeping in a guest room, he always knows when Tony is home because he can hear things clattering to the floor, and Tony grumbling as he stoops to pick them back up.  It's one of the things he loves about Rhodey… if they can joke about it and have fun with it together, then it makes Tony feel like it's normal… like it's not something to be ashamed of or that he has to hide away.  I'm fun, not a freak.  Rhodey had spent five years at MIT trying to change Tony's internal monologue from freak, to fun to be around.

Tony is grateful for that too, because if not for Rhodey, he thinks he might not be any fun at all.  There is value in chaos, something Pepper and Happy might not agree with, but as much as he feels like a freak for all his little tics, he also feels fun, and thinks of himself as such.

* * *

Tony and those closest to him are used to his tics, so it's not usually a problem.  They happen more than usual if he's stressed out or anxious, but he's learned to handle it, and it helps that he doesn't have to hide them (hiding his tics makes him stress out even more), and that he can go home at the end of the day to Pepper and just be himself.

When he'd first built the compound for the Avengers, Tony had worried about moving in with them.  He'd built himself and Pepper a private suite within the compound so he'd have a space to escape to where he wouldn't have to hide his tics from the team.  Still, he'd been worried that they'd notice his compulsive tics and figure out the secret he's been trying to hide since he was a child, Howard's voice always in the back of his mind, "Straighten up and act normal for once Anthony!  This is not a damn freak show!"

He'd thought about telling Bruce once or twice, because back then he'd been spending a lot of time with Bruce in the lab, but he'd changed his mind every time he thought he was ready to tell him.

He'd also thought about telling Clint.  He likes Clint like he likes Bruce… they'd been friends.  Tony had often volunteered to be paired up with Clint on missions, especially missions where they'd need to stake a site out for a few hours.  In the end, Tony had never found it in himself to tell Clint either.

He doesn't want anyone to think he's a freak.  He's never told anyone that hasn't figured it out themselves or been told by Rhodey.  Out of everyone he's ever met, the only other person that's ever figured it out on their own is Yinsen, and Yinsen is gone.

So Tony had been looking at moving into the Avenger's Compound with some trepidation, because up until that point, aside from missions, he hadn't spent a lot of time with the rest of the team, and there hadn't been too much of a chance for his tics to be seen and recognized for what they are.

Then Germany had happened, and suddenly there was no team to move into the compound with.

Tony had almost been as relieved as he had been saddened by the falling out… as comforted to know he wouldn't have to hide his tics when living with them twenty four seven as he was disturbed to know that Steve had almost killed him in that cave in Siberia.

The months after that falling out had been rough, he assumed for all of them, but he'd made it through.  They had too.

Tony had gone about his daily life, never having moved out of the tower and to the compound.  Nothing had changed, except perhaps his dealings with the spider kid.  Tony had done his best to keep Peter at arm's length, which had lasted for about three months, until the kid had stopped the Vulture from hijacking his plane.  After that and getting yelled at by Peter's aunt for over an hour, Tony had decided to take Peter on as his personal intern.

So yeah… life as normal.  It's been good… great even.  Tony doesn't have to worry about accidentally revealing anything about himself to anyone.

That is until the Accords got changed and the Avengers were pardoned.  Since then he's been all set for them to move into the compound while he stays right where he's at in the tower with Pepper where he's safe.

Then Ross intervenes with the new Accords Committee, and demands that the Rogue Avengers be on a six month probation and stay in the tower with Tony.

Tony stares at the email from the Accords Committee outlining the new plan.

No… no, there's nothing to worry about at all.

* * *

Normally Tony only has a thing about single items sitting on a flat horizontal surface.  That's the stuff he knocks off and to the floor.  Normally he's not super stressed out though.  When he's stressed out, it gets worse.  The team moved into the tower up on a floor that's now set aside just for them, and lately he's been knocking all kinds of shit onto the floor.

Sometimes he does that anyway, though in the privacy of his own lab or own home he's not worried about it.  He has bots to pick up after him in the lab.  They're programmed to pick up tools, nuts, bolts and other things after he leaves the lab for the night.

Now, his old worry of living in close proximity to the team is back, and he's worried that with the added stress of having to deal with everything that's happened between them, he's going to be knocking all kinds of things down in front of them.  Fury has been on them lately to, “Regroup and get shit figured out,” so he knows he's not going to get away with just avoiding the team altogether.  At some point they're going to be expected to start going out on missions together again, which means mission briefings.  Then inevitably, Cap will want to start doing team building exercises like team movie nights and team dinners.  Tony used to enjoy those on the rare occasions they happened, but now he's not sure what they'll look like.  If he walks into a team meeting and the situation is tense, his anxiety and stress are going to skyrocket, and he's worried that his hands will want to do something crazy like flip a table over.  It's never happened before, but that doesn't mean it won't, and it doesn't stop him from worrying about it.

There have been a few occasions in the past when he's had a random tic with his hands that happens once and never again, usually when he's really stressed out.  Once, a few days after the incident at the Stark Expo, when he was stressed and anxious about Pepper and what she thought about him, he went to knock on her door at the hotel they were both staying at, and proceeded to knock uncontrollably (about 20 times) until she opened the door in a rush and glared at him.  That had been embarrassing, but as soon as she saw the red in his cheeks and the look on his face, she'd recognized the incessant knocking for what it was: a tic.  That particular tic has never repeated itself, not once.  His worry that he might do something bizarre like flip over a table or knock over a chair is based in reality though, and he can only hope that it won't happen.

* * *

After they move in, it's two days before Tony hears from any of the other Avengers.  They send Bruce down to talk to him since Bruce is the only one that wasn't involved in the fight in Germany.  Bruce had been 'taking a break' after Sokovia and had been hiding out down in South America.  Tony doesn't know what it is that made Bruce decide to come back, but Fury dug him up somewhere, and he moved into the tower along with the others.

Now he's standing outside the glass wall of Tony's lab and asking to be let in.

Tony immediately shoves both hands in his pockets and then tells FRIDAY to let him in.  He knows from experience that putting his hands in his pockets won't help anything.  He can suppress the urge to knock things down for a few moments… a few minutes at most, but the longer he suppresses the urge, the stronger the compulsion to knock things down becomes, and sometimes ends in him knocking over anything and everything he can find.

"Hey Tony," Bruce says, voice quiet and nervous as he takes a few steps into the lab.  His eyes rove around the chaos he finds there.  Tony is glad that Bruce can't see his feet from where he's standing, because there are a dozen tools on the floor scattered around him already.  His workbench is covered in things.  He knows where everything is, but having it covered in things means there's not a single item sitting by itself and waiting to be knocked down, even though his stress has caused him to knock all kinds of things to the floor today.  Most of the time he doesn't even bother to put the mess of tools, wires, soldering irons and other things on his workbench away.  It's always been this way, so Bruce doesn't say anything about the mess on the workbench as he comes over, eyes searching the chaos to see if he can figure out what Tony is working on.

"Hey, all settled in?" Tony asks.

"Getting there."  Bruce motions to his workbench.  "Working on anything interesting?"

Tony scoffs.  "Everything I work on is interesting.  Including this new model of the Stark Phone."  It's not interesting.  In fact, projects he has to work on like this for R and D are the farthest thing from interesting.  It has to be done though, and things like him getting his work done make Pepper happy, so he doesn't mind.

Bruce sets his hands on the workbench and they grow quiet for a few moments.

"So, how is everyone?" Tony asks.  He hates awkward silences and thinks about turning on some music just to cover it up.

"Everyone's a little on edge.  Things are pretty tense between me and Nat right now," he says with a grimace.

Tony nods.  "Right… the whole… flying away after Sokovia thing."  He pulls one hand out of his pocket to motion with it.  He has the urge to sweep a wrench off his desk despite that it's surrounded by other things and stuffs his hand back in his pocket.  The compulsion doesn't go away.  There's a slow feeling of pressure that starts to build in the palm of his right hand from not knocking the wrench down.

"Look, Tony- I'm really sorry about that.  I didn't mean to just abandon you."

Tony frowns.  "You've got nothing to be sorry about.  You needed time away.  I get it."

"No, I-" Bruce opens and closes his mouth a few times, like he's looking for words he just can't find.  "I left because of Nat… because of something that happened between us during the whole Ultron incident.  But, when I left, I didn't just leave her behind.  I left you too."

Tony stills.  He really has no idea what Bruce is getting at.  "We're good."  He takes his hand out of his pocket again and puts it on Bruce's shoulder, just for a moment, then pulls his hand back again.  The pressure is still there in the palm of his hand.  He squeezes his hand in his pocket, hoping that will make it go away.  It's only a few moments before the feeling starts to increase and then starts to crawl up his arm, making his entire arm want to twitch.

"Are we good though?" Bruce asks uncertainly.

Tony raises his brows.  "Yes?"

Bruce sighs.  After a few moments he says, "Why aren't you asking me about Germany?"

"What about Germany?"  Tony shifts uncomfortably, rolling his shoulder.  It feels like he has restless leg syndrome, but in his hand and arm.  He eyes the wrench again and then drags his eyes away and up to Bruce, who looks frustrated.

"When I came back the other night and moved back in, they all asked me why I wasn't there… they wanted to know which side I would have been on.  It got a little… tense, especially when I didn't want to answer, because it's all over now."

"Ah, and you wouldn't have chosen them."  Tony's hand slips out of his pocket without him noticing and he picks up the wrench and starts tapping it on the workbench lightly.  He taps it over to the edge before he realizes what he's doing and then it takes everything he has not to slide it right off and onto the floor.

"Honestly, that whole thing looked like a mess when I saw videos of it on the news.  I'm glad I wasn't a part of that, but I'm also mad at myself for not being there for you.  We're friends… or… we were, and I wasn't there.  I'm sorry."

This isn't what Tony had been expecting.  Then again, he hadn't been expecting Bruce to come back at all.  "You were friends with all of us."  He shrugs like it's no big deal.  It is a big deal, but he can tell that Bruce feels bad about it, and Tony doesn't want him to.  Bruce beats himself up over too many things as it is.

"I'm not sure I was," Bruce says.  Tony looks up and finds that he has his arms wrapped around himself.  It's been almost two and a half years since he's seen him, but he still cares about Bruce and doesn't want him to overanalyze and feel bad about it.

"Look, not a big deal," Tony says.  "I wish I hadn't been a part of it either.  If I could have stayed out of it, I would have.  It's over and done with now.  So," he sets the wrench down and claps his hands together once.  The feeling of pressure in his hand and the tingling of his arm are almost unbearable.  His brain is starting to itch.  The wrench is still begging to end up on the floor.  "How long are you back for?" he asks, voice tight.

Bruce lets his arms drop to his sides.  "I'm not on probation like the others, but Fury wanted me here for a while and I agreed to come back.  Six months, like the others."

"Well," Tony says, "after they leave, you're welcome to stay.  Same offer I gave you before still stands.  I can find work for you at SI."

They grow quiet again, but this time the silence isn't awkward like it was before.

"Do you think the others will want to leave after six months?" Bruce asks.

"I doubt they want to be here."

"I dunno."  Tony meets his eyes again and Bruce says, "From what I've heard, they feel pretty bad about what happened with the team too."

Tony scoffs, his hand now rubbing up and down his pant leg, trying to get the pressure and tingling sensation to go away, even though he knows it won't until the wrench and probably a dozen other items end up on the floor.  "After they harassed you about why you weren't there?"

"I don't know if I'd call it harassing.  They definitely wanted to know though."  Bruce reaches up and rubs the back of his neck.  "They feel bad.  They've all been kind of wondering when you'll come up to talk to them."

"And you were nominated to come find out."  That's what Tony had figured the moment he'd spotted Bruce outside his lab.

"No, I came on my own.  I think they were just going to wait for you to come up."

Tony puts both hands on his workbench and leans on it a little, trying to let the sensation of the cold metal edge override the feeling of pressure, tingling, and itching.  He grips the edge and tries to ignore his brain screaming to swipe the wrench onto the floor.  It's no use, he can't hold the urge back anymore.  He brings both arms forward, wraps them around a bunch of tools and circuit boards, and pulls it all towards himself and then off of the workbench.  It's loud and the noise makes Bruce jump and wince, but Tony’s brain no longer feels like it's itching, and the feeling of pressure and tingling has left his hand and arm.  He wants to sigh in relief, but doesn't because that might look weird to Bruce.

"Tell you what," Tony says, acting like he hadn't just cleared his workbench.  "Let's forget them for a while and work on something fun."

"Wasn't that stuff important?" Bruce asks, looking over the edge of the workbench to the mess at Tony's feet.

Tony shrugs.  "Not important enough to talk about.  Let's go, c'mon, what are we building?"

Bruce smiles at him.  It's been a long time since Tony has seen him smile.  Tony smiles too.  "I've actually been thinking about making a device that can detect the nano particles in-" Bruce is  off and running, talking about a device he has no idea how to build.  His attention is fully diverted from all the crap Tony swept onto the floor, which is exactly what Tony wants.

Bruce is back, and Tony is glad, but that doesn't mean he's going to tell him about his Tourette's, and with any luck, Bruce won't figure it out on his own either.

* * *

Tony doesn't want to go up and talk to Steve or the others, but Bruce had said they seemed sorry for what had happened, and if he puts it off any longer, he's going to stress out about it to the point that he starts sweeping all of his and Pepper's belongings onto the floor.  So he goes up to level 83, where the Avengers are located.

He'd been given three weeks before the Rogues moved back in to get the space ready, and had had a team come in and renovate the space so that there's a common area kitchen and living room, just like at the compound.  The rest of the floor is private bedrooms and a gear room with lockers and benches where the team can get ready if they have to head out in a hurry.

He's not sure what to expect when he gets up there and steps out of the elevator.  He wonders if he'll be questioned like Bruce, or yelled at, or if one of them will want to start a fight.  Tony has his new nanotech watch on so that he can pull a suit out of thin air.  He knows it's not strong enough to stop Cap's shield, but it's all he has to stop the man from trying to finish him off if that's what his goal is.

He steps into the room and lets his eyes sweep the space.  It's only nine PM and he expects the team to be in the living room watching movies or playing video games, because he made sure there were two game consoles in there.  He only finds Steve, sitting at the kitchen island on a stool, reading a book and drinking a cup of coffee.

Tony's stomach does a funny little flip.  He doesn't want to be in a room alone with Steve, but he's more concerned at the moment about the mug of coffee the man is drinking.  Coffee mugs are the bane of his existence for a lot of reasons.  He loves coffee, but he and mugs don't get along.

Mugs are a problem.

Steve turns at the sound of the elevator door and finds Tony standing there.  "Tony?"  He sounds surprised to see him.  "We weren't… erm… sure you were coming."

"Got the email from Fury.  Play nice, kiss and make up, all that good stuff."  He stuffs his hands in his pockets as he makes his way across the living room as casually as he can.  Steve is holding his book, which means the cup of coffee is sitting there on the counter all by itself.  All.  By.  Itself.  His entire body feels like it's itching from the inside out.  His hands and arms feel funny, and he knows they will until that coffee mug is on the floor.  That is not how he wants to start this conversation with Steve.  In fact, he's pretty sure that's how the next civil war, if there is to be one, will start between them: coffee and ceramic shards in a puddle at Steve's feet.

Tony hurries past him and goes directly into the kitchen.  He pulls a mug out and sets it on the counter, and hopes the urge to send them both crashing to the floor will pass.  Then, so it doesn't look weird that he pulled a random mug out and set it on the counter, he starts brewing another pot of coffee, because the current pot is empty.  Once it's set to brewing, he turns and finds Steve watching him from his seat on the other side of the counter.  His coffee mug is in his hands, so Tony picks up the empty mug he set down since his mug is now alone.  This is a dance he's done before, though he hasn't done it in a long time.

"So… how do you want to do this?" Steve asks, and just like Bruce when he'd come into Tony's lab the day before, Steve seems uncertain… like if he says the wrong thing or speaks too loud, a bomb that's sensitive to the sound vibrations around them will go off.  As Steve sets his mug of coffee back on the counter, Tony thinks that's a definite possibility.

Tony frowns and sets his empty mug down.  "Do what?"

"You're not on probation, neither is Bruce.  Ross wanted us here for six months and said you were in charge."

Tony stills.  "That was not in the memo I got."  Probably because Ross is an ass, and wants to make Tony suffer.

Steve sits up a little straighter.  "We thought you'd have rules for us."

Tony shrugs and shakes his head.  "Since when have I cared about rules?"  Always.  Don't hand me things, don't shake my hand, and don't put single items down on flat surfaces.

"So- you don't care if we leave the tower?"

"Do what you want, Cap."  Tony wants to add onto that, 'Just leave me alone,' but he doesn't.  Steve is being far more amicable than he'd expected.  Tony almost wonders if he fell asleep on the couch in his lab and is dreaming all of this.

Steve picks his mug back up, and Tony picks his up.  He turns and pours himself some coffee, takes a sip, and then holds onto his mug until Steve is ready to set his down again.

"Look… about Germany-"

Tony cuts him off.  "Over and done with.  That was two years ago."

"You- don't care?"

"Of course I care."  Tony should have kept his mouth shut, because he really doesn't know what else to follow that up with.  He cares.  The fight in Germany had paralyzed Rhodey from the waist down.  It had ripped the team apart.  It had shown him that Bruce didn't care enough to come back, even when Tony needed him.  Tony had acted like it wasn't something he'd thought about when Bruce had come to the lab, but that had been a lie.  He'd lost everyone but Rhodey and Peter that day.  Nat had switched sides mid battle, Clint had sided with Steve and gone to the compound to collect Wanda, and Steve?  Steve had been determined to do his own thing no matter what the cost.  Tony's throat feels tight just thinking about it, and he's tempted to set his mug full of hot coffee down on the counter just so he can have a good reason to swipe it off and onto the floor, because the itch to knock Steve's coffee mug down is still there, and knocking his own mug off the counter will look better than destroying Steve's.

"Look, unless you want to pick up that fight right where we left off," he motions around the room with the hand holding his coffee.  "Level the tower, flatten Manhattan…" end up in a cave where you can finish trying to carve my chest out with your shield.  He's full of anxiety and definitely feeling the urge to knock things off of the counter, and his eyes dart around looking for something else, but there's nothing, not even on the dining room table.

"So we just," Steve shakes his head slowly, like he's not sure he's hearing Tony right, "put this behind us?"

"That's the plan Capscicle."

Tony sets his mug of coffee in the sink, even though he's barely taken a sip of it.  He heads straight for the elevator.

"We were thinking about making a big breakfast tomorrow," Steve calls after him.  "If you want to come."

"Sure," he says, not turning back.

When he gets back up to the penthouse a couple minutes later, he knocks Pepper's purse and his wallet off the dresser and onto the floor.

“Are you ok?” Pepper asks, looking up from the book she’s sitting in bed reading.  Tony knocks several other items off the top of the dresser.  It would look to anyone that doesn't know, like he's throwing a temper tantrum of some sort, except for the fact that he grimaces as each item hits the floor and then stares down at the mess for a moment in dismay before bending down to pick it all up.

“I agreed to go to a team breakfast tomorrow.” He stands up and puts several items back on the dresser.  His brain starts to itch again right away and he sweeps them all off again, unafraid to do so when it's just him and Pepper in the room.  He sighs, runs a hand over his face and hangs his head.

“Leave them on the floor sweetheart.”

He nods and takes his watch off.  He sets it on his nightstand, but it and the tablet and battery operated clock sitting there end up on the floor right away too.  He sits down heavily on the edge of the bed with a sigh.  Pepper always knows when he's stressed out because nothing can stay on any surfaces in the house.  He doesn't know what he's going to do tomorrow.  He hasn't been this stressed out since Germany… since trying to recruit Spider Man to help bring Cap in and knocking several things off of Peter's desk in his small bedroom in his Queens apartment, and then having to pretend like it was an accident.

She reaches up and runs her hand up and down Tony’s back.  “I'm here.  Just remember, you're not doing this alone.”

He can feel some of the tension drain out of him at her words and gentle touch.

* * *

Pepper goes with him the next morning for breakfast because it's a Saturday.  She knows that Tony is nervous about being around the team again.  It's not like they haven't shared team meals before, or been in close proximity to each other, but Tony is stressed out, and when he's stressed, it makes everything worse.  Pepper knows that about him, and doesn't make him ask her to go with him.  She just goes.

It's a good thing that she does.

Clint seems excited to see Tony, even if the rest of the team seems a little wary.  This will be the first time they're all back together (minus Vision and Wanda, both of whom Fury hasn't been able to track down yet).  The moment Tony and Pepper walk into the common living area from the elevator, Clint calls out to him and waves him over to the kitchen.  Tony tries to ignore the gazes of Steve, Bruce, Nat, and Sam.  He doesn't know Sam, or anything about him other than that he's seen the schematics for Sam's wings, which he and FRIDAY had gotten ahold of by hacking into a military database just before Germany.

"Here you go," Clint says, holding out a mug of freshly brewed coffee to Tony.  "French roast with far too much creamer, just the way you like it."

Tony stares at it for a moment in Clint's outstretched hand, but before he can say anything, Pepper says, "Smells good.  I'm going to steal a sip."  She says it to Tony as she takes the coffee from Clint.  It doesn't seem like Clint minds.  Pepper takes a sip, then sets it down on the kitchen island and slides it over to Tony, who takes it gratefully.  There was no way he could take the coffee from Clint without it ending up on the floor.  Pepper is the best.

He tries not to search the area for things he might have to knock off the counter, but his eyes do it without his permission.  Currently there are four mugs and a glass of orange juice on the kitchen island, several plates of food getting ready to be served on the counter, and napkins and silverware on the kitchen table.  He lets out a sigh of relief.  This is good.  He's good.  Pepper is there with him, and there aren't any single items sitting on the counter or table, and he thinks that he might be relaxed enough to get through this.

"So, how are things on the homefront?" Tony asks Clint.

Clint grins at him.  "I've been at home with my family the whole time.  We were off the grid anyway, so no one knew where to find me."

Tony's eyes travel around the group at the table, wondering if they had been with Clint too.

"Wakanda," Clint says, seeing the unasked question in his eyes.  "I was with them for a few days, then I went home."

Tony nods.  "So, Laura and the kids are good?"

Clint beams and starts telling Tony about how much his kids have grown.  "You should come out and visit," Clint tells him as Steve and Sam start carrying plates of food to the large round table.  "You and Pepper both."

"Sounds good, Katniss."

It looks like Clint wants to keep him engaged in conversation throughout breakfast.  Tony isn't sure if this is some sort of plan they have, or if Clint legitimately missed him this much.  Tony wouldn't have turned him in if he'd contacted him during the last two years, but maybe Clint doesn't know that.

They eat bacon and eggs and homemade biscuits, and just as Tony's plate is nearing empty, Nat says, "Clint, if you'll shut your mouth for a minute, the rest of us might get a chance to talk."

Clint grins and leans in towards her.  "Why would I want to talk to the rest of you?  I've spent the last three days talking to you."

She rolls her eyes and acts like she's going to poke him with a fork.  Then she turns to look at Tony.  "So, looks like you've been doing well."

Tony nods.  He has been, or at least he had been until he'd been contacted by the Accords Committee.

"We saw you in the news a few months back… taking out a drug cartel with a local vigilante?  That spider freak," Sam says.

Tony drops his fork on his plate.  It's not because of an urge to throw it, he's just surprised.  He swallows that surprise down with anger.  Freak.  Freak.  Freak.  Freak show… monkey that belongs in a circus. His eyes come up full of all the anger he's trying and failing to tamp down.  "Don't call him that.  His name is Spider Man."

"His powers are kind of freaky though," Sam says, like he doesn't see the big deal.  "I mean, do those webs come out of him or what?  Disgusting."  He shudders, and Pepper puts a hand on Tony's wrist.  He doesn't know if it's just to lend him some of her calm, or to prevent him from picking something up and throwing it across the room.  Throwing random things really isn't his thing though unless he's been handed something.

Tony's voice is tight, along with all of his muscles as he says, "He's a good kid.  He gets enough of the name calling from the media.  Don't talk about him like that."

Sam looks like he's going to open his mouth again but Steve nudges him and Sam turns to look at him, confused.

"So, you like working with him?" Steve asks carefully in a clear attempt to steer the conversation in a positive direction.  They can all feel the tension hanging between them, or maybe just hanging around Tony like a cloud as he clenches and unclenches a hand below the table.

"He's a little inexperienced, but he's good.  He has good instincts."

"Is he part of the team now?" Steve asks, and Tony is surprised.  He's asking Tony?  Steve is the team lead and they've always made decisions on new members of the team together.  They've considered several vigilantes in the past, but none have made the cut, and it was a team decision to bring both Vision and Wanda on board after Sokovia.

"No," Tony shakes his head.  May wouldn't be ok with Peter joining the Avengers, and Tony doesn't think he would be either.  The kid needs to graduate high school first, and then college.  He's too young to know what he wants, and too young to know that joining the Avengers isn't all it's cracked up to be.  There's so much more that life has to offer than always being on alert and being ready to run out to the next big fight.

"But you're fighting with him," Steve presses.  "It's not the first time we've seen the two of you in the news."

"Kid gets in over his head sometimes."  It's not the whole truth.  Peter does get in over his head sometimes, but more often than not, Tony gets an alert about Spider Man being involved in a car chase with bank robbers or that he's dealing with a gigantic lizard wearing a lab coat that's destroying a jewelry store, and he suits up to go help.  Peter can probably handle most things on his own, but he shouldn't have to, and Tony doesn't want him to feel like he's doing this all alone.

The conversation turns to other people after that, and Tony is thankful.  Clint asks if Tony wants to hang out later, and even though the answer is no, he says, "Sure."  Then he and Pepper make their escape.

"That wasn't so bad," Pepper says, holding his hand as they ride up toward the penthouse in the elevator.  She's trying to sound positive, even though Tony doesn't think she has any positive feelings about the Rogues at all.  She's still mad at Steve in particular for crushing his sternum and leaving him for dead in Siberia.

"There was a lot of stuff sitting around."

She nods.  "Do they know you don't like to be handed things?"

"I'll tell them again."  It's been two years since he's seen them.  Two years is more than enough time to forget that he doesn't like to be handed things and that he doesn't like to shake hands.

"They're going to be here for at least six months," she says.

"Yup."

"Don't you think you should tell them?"

"I'm not telling them," he says.  Sam's voice is on repeat in his mind.  Freak.  Freak.  Freak.  Sam thinks Spider Man is a freak.  There's no way that he'll think that Tony's odd mannerisms are normal if he finds out.

"Ok," she says slowly as the elevator door opens up to the penthouse.  "What about Peter then?"

"What about him?" he asks, confused.

"Are you going to tell them about Peter so you can avoid more conversations like the one at breakfast?"

"I'll tell them I have an intern if they ask.  Peter doesn't want anyone to know Spider Man's identity."

"That's his choice," she says.  "But if he's not going to reveal that, the same conversation could come up again."

"I'll be fine.  I wasn't going to throw anything."

"I didn't think you were."  She brings his hand up to her mouth and kisses it.  "I just wanted you to know that I was there."

She gives him a quick kiss on the lips, lets go of his hand, and goes to the kitchen to fix herself a cup of tea.

Tony takes a deep breath and lets it out again.

The breakfast had been a little tense, but it hadn't been that bad.  He thinks he can handle going to a team meal again without knocking anything off of tables.  He might even be able to handle talking about Spider Man again as long as Sam doesn't start calling him a freak.  Even if Peter isn't there to hear it being said, there's no way Tony is going to let the kid be called that.  Not to his face or behind his back.

* * *

Things still feel tense between Tony and the others for the next two weeks, but he's invited up to the penthouse to watch a movie two days after the team breakfast, and to dinner the night after that.  Sam is absent from both events, and Tony wonders if he just doesn't want to attend, or if he's busy, or if he doesn't want to talk to Tony.  Tony doesn't really care either way.

He's not sure if he wants to actually reconcile with the team, or to be part of the team again.  For now he's housing them because he has to, and doing his best to keep his tics hidden.  His plans don't extend beyond that.

Bruce comes down to his lab a few times in the following two weeks, and Clint comes down once to hang out with Tony and to see if Tony will fix up some of his gear, which is long overdue for repair.  Tony knocks a few things off his workbench in front of them, but makes it look like an accident each time, and neither of them comment on it.

He doesn't spend any time alone with Steve, Nat or Sam, though he does see them a few more times when he's asked to come have a meal with them.  Spider Man isn't brought up again, and Tony thinks he just might be in the clear.

He starts to relax a little.  Maybe he has nothing to be worried about after all.  He can do this, he thinks.  Things are going far better than he'd expected, and he can do this.

* * *

Tony isn't actively avoiding the team, but he doesn't go to spend time with them unless asked to.  He spends the majority of his time with Pepper, working on new things for R and D, or in his lab, by himself or with Peter.  Peter is around a lot.  He used to just come one afternoon a week, but six months prior he'd started coming for three afternoons a week.  Since the Rogues have returned, Tony has told the kid to come by more often if he wants, and Peter has been coming by not only on his official lab days, but on other days and times as well.

Peter is one of the few people in his life that he doesn't mind spending time with, and doesn't feel like he has to be on edge around.  The kid has no idea that he has Tourette's, but it's been more than a year since Tony has tried to play off the various things he knocks to the floor as an accident when around him.  Peter is around so often now that Tony almost thinks of his lab as belonging to him and Peter both.  In his mind, because the lab is part of his home, then that makes the tower in some part Peter's home too, and if it's Peter's home as much as it is Tony's, he doesn't feel like he has to be on edge around him all the time where it involves his odd tics.

It helps that Peter never mentions it when Tony knocks tools off of his workbench.

Sometimes when it happens, Peter just picks the tools up and sets them back on the workbench.  Other times the kid leaves the downed items on the floor (particularly if Tony is having a really stressful day and is just knocking shit off the workbench repeatedly).  Once, when he'd been stressed out about a deadline he needed to meet and was miles behind on paperwork Pepper had been on him to finish, he'd knocked about nine items down in twenty minutes.  Peter had stooped to continue picking things up, and Tony had told him, "Just leave it there for now kid."  Ever since then, if he's knocking a lot of things down, Peter leaves them where they lay.

There had been a time in the early days of Peter coming to his lab when Tony had been afraid that Peter would ask about his tics.  Tony would knock something to the floor and occasionally Peter would say, "Mr. Stark?"  Tony had always tensed up at Peter saying his name like that right after he'd knocked something down… it was like the kid wanted to ask, but was nervous about doing so.  But after a few moments Peter had always followed that up with a mundane question like, "What's your favorite Star Wars movie?" or, "What's your favorite kind of jelly donut?"

He's so used to Peter's off the wall questions now, that when he knocks several items off his workbench, and Peter says, "Mr. Stark?" he doesn't tense up or grow weary.  

He's expecting a mundane question to follow, so he says, "Yeah?"

He's surprised when Peter doesn't ask a question and says, “You don’t have to be stressed out around me.”

Tony frowns and looks up from the PCB he’s soldering.  “What?”  He is stressed out, but he hasn’t been snapping at Peter, so he’s not sure how the kid knows.  Maybe his hearing is so good that he can hear Tony’s heartbeat and tell that his blood pressure is higher than normal.

Peter points at the twelve or so items around Tony’s feet on the lab floor.  “Your tics get worse when you’re stressed out.  I just wanted you to know, you don’t have to be stressed around me.  I mean…” Peter trails away and bites his lip, looking like he’s unsure of himself.  “I don’t mind,” he finishes quietly.  “That’s all.”

Tony realizes after long moments that he’s holding his breath.  He gathers enough mental energy back to himself to say, “Tics?  I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  This was not how he'd been expecting time in the lab to go today.  Not at all.

Peter fidgets with his fingers again, toying with a piece of smooth metal on top of the workbench.  After a few moments his face goes from uncertain, to determined.  “Uncle Ben had Tourette's too.  He had a couple facial tics and there were a few words he’d sometimes repeat under his breath.  It always happened more often when he was stressed out about work or money or something.  He didn’t like people to know either.”

Tony just stares at him.  Peter looks up and meets his eyes.  He’s not accusing Tony… not putting him down for it or acting like it’s a big deal.  He doesn’t even pretend that Tony might not know that he has Tourette's.

“Yeah,” Tony says slowly, “all right kid.  I’m not stressed out about you.”  He motions towards Peter’s part of the project they've been working on, hand moving in a little circle.  “Just focus on what you’re supposed to be doing so we can get this done and go watch a movie, Roo.”

Peter smiles to himself and looks back down at his project.  Tony knocks a wrench off the desk and it clatters to the floor.

“Uncle Ben was the best,” Peter says, not even looking at the wrench or flinching at the sound of metal hitting the floor.

Tony wants to ignore him… to get away from the talk of his uncontrollable hands and bizarre behavior, but Peter almost never talks about Ben, so when he does, Tony feels like he has to listen… feels like he’s being let in on a part of Peter’s life that is completely private to everyone but Peter and May.

“You’re the best too Mr. Stark.  You’re still my favorite Avenger.”

Tony looks over at Peter, though the boy’s face is slightly red and he’s pretending to be focused on his task, rewiring a component.  Tony doesn’t know what to do with that.  "Uncle Ben was the best.  You’re the best too."  He’s always known that he’s Peter’s favorite Avenger.  He frequently teases him about it and often buys him Iron Man merchandise, like mugs and pajama pants, and once, an Iron Man Build A Bear.  In turn Peter finds or makes Spider Man items and gives them to Tony.  Tony has several Spider Man t-shirts that he wears with pride.

But today Peter hadn’t said, "You’re my favorite Avenger," he’d said, "You’re still my favorite Avenger."  Tony toy’s with a wrench, spinning it between his fingers.  Maybe what he’d been trying to say is, 'You’re still my favorite Avenger even though you have Tourette's.'  Tony lifts his eyes up to look at the kid again.  Peter’s face is no longer red and he’s working quietly.  The kid had basically said, ‘You have Tourette's and I don’t care.’

Tony's chest fills with warmth.  If he didn’t already adore this kid…

Later, as they finish up in the lab and then head up to the penthouse to watch a movie (he lets Peter pick Star Wars again, because how could he not after what the kid had told him in the lab), he thinks about the other thing Peter had said.  "Uncle Ben was the best.  You’re the best too."

Ben Parker holds a special place in Peter’s heart, not just because he died, but because he raised Peter… was Peter’s father for seven years.  Tony doesn’t dare to believe that Peter is comparing him to Ben in that way.  The two statements must be separate.  There must be something else about Tony that Peter likes.

But still.  "You’re the best too."

He knows he’s loved by Pepper, and Rhodey, and liked by Happy.  He’s disliked by a lot of people though… the media, various people in high positions in the government, the Avengers…

"You’re the best too."

Ben had held a special place in Peter’s life.  He was the best.  Tony doesn’t know how, but somehow he’s earned a spot right there next to Ben in some form or fashion.  He doesn’t think he deserves it, but that’s where things stand.

Next to him on the couch in the penthouse, Peter wraps his arms around himself like he’s cold.  Tony doesn’t usually hug the kid unless he’s been stabbed or needs a blood draw and Tony has to calm him down.  But right now he feels like- he feels like- yeah.  He feels like hugging the kid might not be such a bad thing.

“Cold?”

“Yeah.”  Peter doesn’t take his eyes off the screen until Tony lifts his arm up a moment later.  Peter looks at him, looks at his raised arm, and then leans into his side.

Tony sets his arm around Peter’s shoulders.  “This ok?”

“Yeah,” the kid chirps.  He sounds happy, and a few moments later he scooches down on the couch a little and presses closer until he’s comfortable and warm against Tony's side.

“Warm now?”

Peter nods with a smile.  Tony can have no idea that he has just given Peter blanket permission to steal his body heat whenever he wants, and that Peter plans on taking full advantage of that.

* * *

Tony hates mugs with a passion.  It's an odd contradiction, because he loves the promise of coffee that mugs hold.  Tony usually uses a metal mug with a lid for his coffee, and has several with a spill proof lid.  That way when he knocks his mug off the table, his coffee doesn't die a gruesome death and he's not left having to mop up a mess on the floor.  Pepper sometimes uses regular mugs with no lid, but for the most part she and Happy have switched to using spill proof mugs as well.

The problem with mugs is that they're such an easy thing to set down somewhere and forget about.  They often end up sitting all by themself on a kitchen counter, or a coffee table, which makes them fair game to knock to the ground as far as Tony's brain is concerned.

So far, the dozen or so time's he's interacted with the returned Rogues, he's managed to not knock anything of theirs down.  It appears that that short winning streak (because Tony has considered it a win up to this point) is over.  He knows it is the moment he steps off the elevator and into the empty Avenger's common area and sees a white mug sitting all by itself on the dining table.

Every time he's been to the Avenger's floor since they returned, it's been a careful dance not to knock things to the floor, or he's had to suppress the urge, which resulted in him leaving quickly and then going to the penthouse or the lab and having a mini tic attack, where he'd knocked lots of things down.  Now the living room and kitchen are empty and his hands are itching to knock the mug to the floor.  It can't be on a table by itself.  It just can't.

He moves quickly across the space to the table and knocks it right onto the floor, thankful that the mug is empty, just a few drops of coffee or hot chocolate left in it.  He winces when his victim hits the ground and splits in half, right down the center.  Thankfully it was just a plain white mug.  He'd stocked the cabinets with a dozen or more white mugs right before the team had moved in.

"Dude, what the hell?"

Tony's head snaps up to see Clint, who is standing in the hallway leading to the bedrooms and gear room.  The man looks shocked, but the look gives way to anger after only a moment.

Tony tries to suppress a groan and fails.  "It was an accident.  I'll clean it up."  He stoops down to pick up the two broken pieces and a few little splinters of ceramic.

"That didn't look like an accident," Clint says, coming over to him.  "You pushed it right off.  What the heck did I do to piss you off?"

"What?" Tony asks, looking up at him.  He stands up, two halves of the white mug in hand.  "Nothing.  I was coming down to hang out… like you said."  Clint had sent him a text twenty minutes before, asking if Tony wanted to come watch a movie and talk about modifications to his bow that Clint has ideas about.

"And to break the mug my kids gave me for Father's Day."  Clint has his hands on his hips.  "It wasn't an accident.  I saw you reach over and push it off the table."

Tony is confused.  He looks down at the broken halves of the mug and flips one over.  There's a photo of Clint's kids printed on it.  His stomach falls.  Not a plain white mug after all.  Not that he could have stopped himself even if he'd known it was a keepsake to begin with.

"Look, I'm really sorry.  I'll buy a new one.  I thought it was a plain white mug."

"And that makes it ok to break it?"

Normally when he can't pass this tic off as an accident, he says something like, "I do what I want."  People that don't know him well often think he's just eccentric because of it.  Sometimes they think he's cocky.  He can't say that to Clint though.  Clint is the only Rogue Avenger that's been making an effort to include him in things regularly, or to ask him to do things like hang out.  The others have been civil with him… careful even, but Clint is the only one that has seemed genuinely happy to spend time with him.  Bruce has been trying to spend time with him too, but with Bruce it's different, because Bruce hadn't been part of the whole mess in Germany and Siberia.  "It was an accident," Tony says again.  "Really."  It's all he can say, even though he knows Clint doesn't believe him because he'd seen Tony knock it down.

Clint sighs, holds out his hand for the broken mug, and then takes it to the kitchen and throws it away in the trash can.  He still looks angry… upset, but Tony can see him visibly trying to tamp down on those emotions… fighting with himself to let it go.  Tony's stomach churns again.  He hates mugs, and he hates his crazy tics.  "Am I running Howard Stark’s freak show?  Should I start charging money to have people come see my son flailing around and knocking things down?”

"Ok," Clint says, voice dark, but calmer than it had been a minute ago.  "So, do you want to watch a movie or what?"

Tony's not sure he does, but he can't back out now.  "Sure, what are we thinking?"

"Something destructive…" Clint says, voice tight.  He moves for the couch.  "Die Hard."

"Sounds good."

Tony sits down in a comfortable leather chair, making sure there's some distance between him and Clint, who is sitting on the couch.  They turn on Die Hard, and it's not until halfway through the movie that Clint starts to relax a little.  "That's what I'm talking about!" he shouts happily at the TV as the main character knocks one of the bad guys out.  "I did the same thing on an op in Turkey!"

"I watched Spider Man do it like that to a child trafficker.  Cold-cocked him right to the face.  Guy's head snapped back so hard he had to have gotten whiplash."

"You guys took down a child trafficker?"

"A small ring operating in Harlem."

Clint nods, looking impressed.  "You said Spidey's a kid, right?  When will he be done with college?"

Tony flexes his fingers, and then digs them into the arm of the chair he's sitting in.  "It'll be a while yet."

"Well, the next time the two of you go out on a bust like that, count me in."

Tony isn't sure whether he's excited that Clint wants to go on a mission with him and Peter, or nervous.  Out of all of the team members, he's always thought that Clint is the most fun to spend time with when they're doing boring recon work.  Tony hasn't done a lot of recon work since the team broke up, but if they get called out on a mission like that again, he hopes Clint will want to be paired up with him.

Clint seems to have pushed the broken mug from his mind by the time the movie ends and they move down to Tony's lab to hash out ideas for Clint's bow.  He doesn't seem angry at all.

Tony does his best not to knock anything down in his lab while Clint is there.  He's already acted weird enough for one day in front of him.

* * *

Even though they'd left off on a good note the day before, Clint is pissed off at him now.  Tony can't pin down why.

"Do you think this is funny?"

Tony frowns and looks down at the cardboard box he'd just brought in to give to him.  He'd promised the day before that he would replace the mug he'd broken.  He'd had FRIDAY grab the same photo that had been on the broken mug, and then ordered a dozen more.  This way, if he can't control his stupid hands and breaks one again, Clint will have eleven more to use.  Tony would like to say that it's not possible for him to break all twelve new mugs, but he knows that's not the case.  If he buys Pepper a ceramic mug and it turns out that she really likes it, he buys a case of them.

"No."  No, he doesn't think this is funny.

Clint eyes him warily.  He motions towards the box and says uncertainly, "This isn't just you trying to show off how much money you have?"

Tony shakes his head, and Clint pulls in a deep breath and then lets it out slowly.  He stares at the case of mugs warily for a moment and says, "Whatever.  You can take those to your house.  I’m not using them.  Those aren’t from my kids.  I already called home and asked Laura to send a new one.”

Clint walks away, leaving Tony there alone.  Except, he isn't alone.  Sam is sitting on the couch, watching, and not pretending to mind his business at all.  Tony stares after Clint, takes the box of mugs and heads back to the elevator without a word.  He can feel Sam's gaze burning a hole in his back as he goes.

* * *

It's a full week before Clint asks him to hang out again.  Tony figures it's probably best that he gives the guy his space, but doesn't want to make him angry by refusing his invitation.

He goes down to the Avenger's floor and has coffee and donuts for breakfast with Clint and Natasha.  Three mugs on the table along with a box of donuts.  He doesn't feel compelled to push anything onto the floor, and he's grateful.  Clint doesn't bring up the broken mug from his kids, or the box of mugs Tony had tried to replace it with.

One incident, he thinks when he's back in the elevator forty minutes later and on his way down to Pepper's office to sign some paperwork.  It was just one incident, and they can move past this.  He lets his head fall back against the elevator and lets out a sigh of relief.  He can still salvage this.  It's the first time since he'd been told that the Rogues were being forced to move into the tower that he feels like he wants to salvage it… that he wants to be part of the team still and to make it work.  He wants to go on missions with Clint, and to be on the team again with Bruce.  And with that realization comes the realization that he wants all of it: the team training sessions, the group dinners, and movie nights.  He's just not sure if the rest of the team wants him to be a part of all of that.  If they do, or if they're going to make this work, he's going to have to keep it to just one incident.  One broken mug.  They can move past that, right?

* * *

Steve emails Tony and asks if he'd like to join a team training session in the gym on the 84th floor.  Tony has always had a gym on the 84th floor, complete with a boxing ring, a basketball hoop, and workout equipment.  Since finding out that the Rogues would be moving in, he's had Steve-strength punching bags installed, as well as other training equipment the team might like.  He readily agrees, and then, that Saturday, finds himself in the gym with the team.

Steve talks about some drills he wants to run, splits them into groups of two, and then they're off and running.

Tony loves the gym because aside from the floor and the boxing ring, there are no flat surfaces to set things down on.  For the entire two hour training session, he doesn't feel the urge to knock anything over.

They practice maneuvers, he and Clint laugh and joke around, and he even gets Bruce to laugh a couple times.

Things are good, and he thinks if they can do more of this, things can stay good.

* * *

Tony stares down at the wattle bottle he's knocked off the kitchen counter on the Avenger's floor.  He looks around to see if anyone noticed him knock it to the ground.  All eyes are on the TV, because it's movie night.  He picks it up, turns in a slow circle, and finds that there are several boxes of popcorn sitting on the counter behind him.  It's a safe place to set the water bottle, so he puts it down there and hurries back to the living room.  No one gives him a look like they've noticed anything amiss, and he takes his seat again and relaxes.

* * *

The Rogues have been back in the tower for just over a month.  They've invited Tony to several movie nights, multiple big meals, and five training sessions in the gym.  Things are going well, right up until the point that they aren't.

Tony is staring at another mug on the floor, this one broken into several pieces and many small shards.  At least this one is a plain mug, he's sure it is.  It's not one of the ones he'd purchased for the team to use, but it's plain black and there's no design on it, so he doesn't think it can be a keepsake.

"Is there a reason why you keep breaking our stuff?" Sam asks.  He'd turned his back for a moment and without thinking, Tony had reached out and knocked the black mug off the counter.

"I'm not," he says.

Sam eyes the clearly broken mug on the floor and then looks up at Tony and raises a brow.

"I broke it," he says, "but I'm not trying to break your things."  He goes to the pantry and grabs a broom and dust pan.  "Was this yours?"

"Cap's."

"Shit," he mutters as he stoops down and sweeps up the shards of ceramic.

Sam is quiet for a moment as he watches him.  "I don't think he'll care too much.  It wasn't his favorite mug or anything."  Sam reaches up to open the cupboard full of mugs and cups, and pulls out a gray mug with the Captain America shield on the front.  "This one is his favorite."  Tony knows that mug is going to hit the ground too the moment Sam sets it down on the counter by itself.  Tony stands up and swipes his hand at it, knocking it to the floor, then he freezes.

Sam stares at him for one breath, two, and then says, "You are such an ass."

He can't claim this was an accident.  Not two mugs in a row… not when Sam had just told him that this one was Steve's favorite and then he'd reached over and knocked it to the ground.

Tony's throat is dry when he says, "I do what I want."  He wishes he had something better to say, because this is definitely not the way to get the team to like him again.

Sam scoffs and walks away, leaving Tony to continue cleaning up the mess.  Tony crouches down to sweep the second broken mug up, though he doesn't clean it up right away.  He hangs his head and covers his face with his hand for a moment.

"FRI, can you find this same mug and order one?"

FRIDAY chirps to let him know she's heard and is working on it.  He sweeps up the mess, makes sure there are no more little shards of ceramic on the floor for anyone to step on, and hurries away to the elevator.  "You are such an ass."  "I do what I want."  This is the price he has to pay to look normal.  Not that being an asshole is normal, but it's better than being a freak.

FRIDAY finds the mug in stock at a local Target.  Tony goes out and gets it, and then late at night, when FRIDAY has confirmed that all the members of the team are asleep, he sneaks back down to the Avenger's floor and puts the new mug in the mug cabinet.  Clint hadn't reacted well to him buying an entire case of mugs.  He hopes Steve isn't too upset that he replaced it with just one.

* * *

"So, we should talk about Germany," Nat says.

Tony groans.  He's sitting and having coffee and croissants with her and Steve for breakfast.  It's been four days since he broke two mugs right in front of Sam, but none of them have said a word about it.  This is the first time that they've invited him back to have a meal since then.  For now it's just the three of them because everyone else is either out or still sleeping.  It's early still, only six AM.

"We really shouldn't," he says.  He wants to forget about Germany and pretend like it never happened.  There's a phantom ache in his chest just thinking about what came after Germany, and he resists the urge to reach up and rub his chest where his sternum had been crushed by Steve's shield.

"You're not still angry about it?" Nat questions.  Tony notes that Steve is staying silent.

"No."

Nat and Steve exchange a glance.  Tony pulls apart a soft croissant and stuffs one half in his mouth so he has an excuse not to talk.

"It's ok to be angry," Nat says, and Tony rolls his eyes.  "But we can't move past that without talking about it."

"Not angry, and no need to talk about it," he says again, voice a little cutting.  He likes coming down to have little early morning breakfasts with her and Clint, or now with her and Steve, but he doesn't want to talk about anything related to how they all fought and fell out.

"Good," she says.  "Because I'd really like to move past it."

"Moved, put the old house up for sale, and planted a garden in the new yard," Tony says.

She doesn't bring it up again, and Steve starts up a conversation with her about an email he'd received from Fury the night before.  It's not about a threat or an upcoming mission, but Steve talks about it like it is.  Fury wants them to find ways to work on the team's image… to get people to believe in them again.

"We could always do some sort of charity event," Tony says.

Steve looks across the table at him.  "Charity?"

"A gala to raise money for a good cause, something like that.  SI runs a few a year.  There's a team from PR down on floor 17 that puts them together."

"Can we get their help to put together a gala for a charity we choose?" Steve asks.

"Sure.  FRI, send a message down to the gala team and let them know they'll be working with Steve.  Send Steve the email address for the head of the team too."

"Yes Boss."

"What kind of charity will we be raising money for?" Nat asks.

"The PR team has a list of good ones.  If you don't like any of those, they can help you find something."

"Where would we have the event?" asks Steve.

"They have a list of places, but have it wherever you want.  SI will fund it.  The team will help you get all the details figured out."

"Thanks," Steve says.  Tony looks up and finds him smiling.  "This might be just what the team needs.  We'll all have to be there though.  Fury made it clear that we have to present a unified front."

"Everyone is going to need nice clothes.  I'll have FRIDAY give you a list of tailors we use, and then you guys can go get suits and dresses.  Just tell the PR team when you talk with them that clothing costs need to be covered too.  They'll give you a card to use."

"What do you think Nat?" Steve asks, because she's been relatively quiet throughout the conversation.

"I'm not going to turn down a chance to get a new dress and get all dressed up.  Shoes come included in this, right?"

Tony leans back in his chair, relaxed.  He likes having the money to be able to do stuff like this for the team.  "Two pairs."

"Two?" Steve asks.

"Why not?"

He doesn't have time to sit there with them and hash out all the details.  He has an R and D meeting to get to in an hour and a half, and he has to get down to his lab to get some things together for it beforehand.  He puts his dishes in the dishwasher, and leaves Nat and Steve there, still talking about the gala, bouncing ideas back and forth about charities they might be able to raise money for.

* * *

He thinks things are going well.  Pepper mentions the Avenger's charity gala to him a few days later, so he knows that Steve and the PR team have the ball rolling on that.  He's invited to a team dinner, and to another team training session in the gym.

Then he knocks a plastic cup of orange juice off the coffee table in the Avenger's living room and right onto Sam's feet.

"Man, what the hell is wrong with you?" Sam asks.

"Nothing."  Everything.  "I'll clean it up."

Sam stands up and says, "Forget it," and stomps away to change into a clean pair of socks and wash his feet.  Tony gets up to get a towel.

"Are you mad at him?" Steve asks.

"No!" Tony cuts out.  He brings back a towel and mops up the sticky orange liquid.

"Why did you do that then?"

"It was an accident."

Steve doesn't respond, and Tony tries not to look up at him as he stands up with the wet towel, but he catches sight of his face anyway.  He looks upset, but not angry.

"It was just an accident," Tony cuts out again.  He puts the dirty towel on the kitchen counter and goes to the elevator.  He feels like a monkey in a fucking circus.

* * *

"I don't even think he realizes he's doing it."

"How can he not realize he's doing it?" Sam snaps.  "I've watched him push like, three cups down now!  He broke two of them!"

"Yeah, but he replaced my broken mug," Steve points out.  "Clint's too."

Clint shifts in his seat like he's uncomfortable.

"I'm telling you, he's doing it on purpose," Sam says, eyes and voice frustrated and angry.  "Guy's a lunatic."

"He's self destructive," Nat says.  "I've never seen him destroy other people's property on purpose though.  So, like I said, I don't think he even realizes he's doing it."

Sam reaches forward to the pen and pad of paper sitting on the coffee table in front of him, and with an exaggerated motion, swipes it off the table and to the floor.  "Nope, I knew what I was doing," he says with a sarcastic tone.

"I'm with Nat," Bruce says quietly, holding his mug of hot tea.  "I've never seen him break things on purpose."

"Why would he keep doing this if he doesn't realize he's doing it?" Steve asks Nat.  He's trying to get a handle on what's going on, and he trusts her.  He's known and worked with her long enough to know how observant she is, and that she's usually right about things like this.

"I think he's still angry about Germany."

"He said he wasn't," Steve says.

"He told me that too," Bruce puts in.

"He says it, but that doesn't mean it's true," she tells them.  "Ross forced us on him… forced us to move into the tower with him.  Don't you think that would make you angry if you were in his place?  Especially after everything that happened… Rhodey, and- Siberia."

Steve flinches.  They all know he and Tony fought a second time, but he doesn't think any of them know the truth of how bad that second fight had been.  Only he and Bucky know, and Bucky is still in Wakanda sleeping in a cryochamber.  "Nat might be right," he says heavily.

Sam shakes his head.  "Ok, he's pissed off.  I don't buy for a moment that he doesn't know what he's doing though.  Breaking our stuff, knocking things down… that's some passive aggressive bullshit right there."  He gestures emphatically with his hand, punctuating the last point sharply in front of him.

The group falls silent, not sure what to do or say about it.

"What do you think Clint?  You've been spending a lot of time with him," Steve says.

Clint looks up, shifts uncomfortably again, and says, "He hasn't seemed angry to me."

"He broke your mug first," Sam says.

"Yeah."  Clint reaches up and rubs his forehead for a moment.  "Ok, look.  Let's just give him the benefit of the doubt for a minute.  He's been friendly to all of us.  He didn't have to remodel a whole floor for us, but he did.  This is a lot nicer than staying at SHIELD in a bedroom the size of a closet.  He's paying for this gala, right?"  He looks up at Steve but doesn't wait for an answer.  "He comes to all the things we invite him to."

"And?" Sam asks testily.

"I'm just saying, the good is stacked up way higher than the bad."

"Do you know what he said to me when he broke Steve's mug right after I told him it was his favorite?  I do what I want."  Sam leans back against the couch.  "Real standup guy there.  We don't have to put up with this."

Steve holds up his hands like he's trying to calm the group down even though it's only Sam that's agitated at the moment.  "We're here for five more months at least.  I'm hoping it will be longer.  We need to try to make this work.  Fury is right, we need to be together in case of another big threat.  I think Clint's right.  The good outweighs the thing he's been doing."  He looks up at Nat.  "Do you want to talk to him again about Germany or should I?"

"I'll do it," Bruce says.  "You said he wouldn't talk to either of you about it."  He looks like he's not looking forward to talking about it with Tony at all.

"Ok, Bruce is on it," Steve says.  "In the meantime, we need this gala to go smoothly.  We need people to believe in us again as a team."

The elevator door opens and Tony walks out.  Everyone collectively reaches for their drink and picks it up from the coffee table.  Tony flinches and Bruce grimaces.

"Team meeting?" Tony asks.

It is a team meeting, but no one had told him about it since they're discussing him.

"Just discussing the gala," Steve says.

Everyone's face is too tight though… everyone is sitting too rigidly.  Steve can tell that Tony doesn't believe what he said.

"Right."  Tony eyes the way everyone is holding their mugs and cups protectively again.  He doesn't say anything for a few moments, but then suddenly, he claps his hands together once and his whole demeanor changes.  "I was thinking takeout for dinner.  Chinese?"  He says it like he's happy to be there… like everything is just fine.  Steve wishes he could pretend that it's fine as easily as Tony does.

"I'm out," Sam says.  He stands up, taking his drink with him, and disappears down the hall leading to the bedrooms.

"Chinese sounds good," Bruce says.

"We have a lot left to discuss about the gala," Steve tells him, "and I already ate."

Nat nods and says, "Me too."

Clint stands up and turns to Tony.  "We can go out and grab Chinese."  Steve can't see the smile Clint is wearing, but he can hear the strain in the archer's voice.

"Come on then, let's blow this pop stand," Tony says.

Bruce stands up too, leaving his mug on the coffee table.  It's the only one there.  As he makes his way to Clint and Tony, Steve doesn't miss the irritated look Tony gives to Bruce's mug as they get into the elevator and the doors slide closed.

* * *

"Say it," Tony says with a huff.

Bruce looks up at him from the other side of the metal workbench in Tony's lab the next day.  "Say what?"

"Whatever it is that's been making you frown since you came down here.  What is it?  Chinese food from last night not agreeing with the big guy?"

Bruce looks down at the sensor he's calibrating.  He's quiet for long moments.  He's quiet for so long that Tony can feel anxiety trying to rise up in his chest.  Then he speaks, and it's the last thing Tony expects to come from his friend.

"They all think you're still mad about Germany."

He frowns.  "I'm not.  I keep telling them that."

"But you've been acting odd.  They think that's the reason why."

"Ok, first off," Tony says with a little laugh, "I'm not odd, I'm eccentric."  He's not.  He knows he's not, but he has to spin this some way and this is always what's worked best for him.  Bruce won't buy that he's a jerk if he tries to play it that way, because Bruce never has.

"I'm serious, Tony."

"I am too.  I'm not acting odd."

"You dumped orange juice on Sam's socks."

Tony points at him and says, "You weren't there.  That's not what happened."

"You didn't knock his orange juice to the ground?"

"That, I did," he says.  "You made it sound like he told you I just turned the cup upside down over his feet or something."

"He didn't say it like that.  Besides, I heard it from Steve."

"It was an accident, no big deal.  I cleaned it up."

"They're not so sure it's an accident.  They think you're angry about the fight in Germany still and trying to get back at them."

Tony pauses and looks up at Bruce.  He blinks several times and says, "That's ridiculous.  I've been nothing but nice since everyone came back!"

"Clint said the same thing."

"At least somebody's on my side."

"I'm on your side," Bruce says.  His voice is quiet though… upset.  Tony wonders if he's talking about Germany or the thing they're discussing right now.

"Yeah, I know.  Look, you don't have to keep beating yourself up over that.  You don't always have to be on my side either.  I'm a jerk sometimes.  I get it.  They think I'm a jerk, and that's ok."

"It's not ok, because I know that you're not a jerk."

"Yeah, well, can't fool everybody," Tony says.

Bruce gives him a dark look.  "You're not fooling anybody.  Ok, look," Bruce sighs and reaches up to rub his eyes under his glasses for a moment.  "I just wanted to tell you what's going on with them."  He looks at Tony and says, "Now what's going on with you?"

Tony is reminded of all the times he's wanted to tell Bruce about his Tourette's in the past.  He thinks about the times he's wanted to tell Clint too.  They're his friends.  He'd thought that before though and found out that he'd been wrong.  They're only his friends right now because it's convenient, and they're all at the tower together.  That could change in an instant.

"What's happening is that I keep being clumsy and knocking things down, and people are reading too much into it.  What's also happening is that I'm starving because I skipped breakfast this morning, and I'm thinking about Chinese food again."

Bruce scrutinizes his face for a few moments, mulling over his words.  Tony isn't sure he believes him.  Bruce grimaces a few moments later, and puts his hand on his stomach.  "No, no Chinese food.  You're right, the big guy didn't like it."

"Mexican?"

Bruce nods.  "I could go for tacos."

"FRI, you know the drill."

FRIDAY chirps to let him know she's doing what he wants.  When he's ordering for him and Bruce, or him and Peter, they order one of everything on the menu.  Tony's not picky when it comes to Chinese food, Mexican food, or several other kinds of food, so whatever Bruce decides he doesn't want, that's what Tony will eat.

Notes:

While I'm interested in engaging with people about the story, talking about TS, and hearing about people's personal experiences with TS, I'm going to ask you to refrain from trying to diagnose Tony with any kind of disorder in the comments.  There is a lot of information about TS scattered throughout the story, and in various author's notes, including a really good piece of info about how TS and OCD symptoms overlap in the end note of another chapter.  I also include links to TS reading material in author's notes where applicable.

Some (long) notes about Tourette Syndrome (TS):

Someone with TS may have one or more tics that stick around for years.  They may also have tics that are only there for a few months (such as repeating a certain word, but then after a few months that tic might go away, or they might start repeating a different word).  Sometimes people with TS can also have a tic that happens just one time and then never again.  Most people with TS have multiple tics, not just one.  Some people have dozens of different tics.  Tics can hang around for a long time, they can come and go, or they can change to other tics.  People with TS have no control over this.

In case anyone is wondering, there are different types of tics that can present in Tourette Syndrome.

• Simple motor tics like eye blinking, or grimacing.
• Complex motor tics (involuntary movements that might resemble voluntary activity, like skipping, hopping, smelling).
• Compulsive tics - often repetitive movements performed (sometimes according to a rule or ritual) in response to an obsession or to reduce tension or stress), such as touching a door a certain number of times, or Tony’s compulsion to knock things off a table if something is sitting there alone or is taller than other things on the table.
• Impulsive tics, which are repetitive movements performed without any thoughts and without regard to consequences.
• Impulsive-compulsive tics, which have qualities of both impulsive and compulsive tics.
• Simple vocal tics such as throat clearing, sniffing, grunting.
• Complex vocal tics such as calling out, involuntary swearing, repeating what other people say, repeating words over and over again.

There are more types of tics than this.  Researchers are still discovering more types, such as cognitive tics (just as one example).

Tic Attacks - A severe bout of ticking, and uncontrollable movements that can come on.  The tic attack can be made up of the person's normal tics, but can also have abnormal whole body movements.  They can last minutes or hours, can be scary, painful in some instances, and are often brought on by high stress and anxiety.

All of this is to say that it’s a complex thing that can present differently in different people as TS is considered a spectrum.  TS also overlaps with other things like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and often it overlaps so much that what is TS and what is OCD can't be distinguished between each other (and some in the field are pushing for a new combined disorder called Tourettic OCD).  Most of what is written in this story for Tony is one compulsive tic where he actually feels a compulsion to do something (knock down single items) and complex motor tics (wiping his hand after a handshake and throwing items down that are handed to him).  Sometimes people with compulsive tics can hold off on ‘ticking’ for a few moments or minutes, but it makes the feeling that they have to do it even stronger (and often leads to an even bigger round of ticking), which is what was happening in Tony’s case.

Also, tense or anxious social situations, anxiety and stress can often lead to worse ticking for people with TS.  Being around other people with TS can also set off and intensify ticking.

Both of these links are long reads but extremely informative:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2656307/

https://focus.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/foc.5.3.foc361