“Time to haze the newbie.”

Tony looked up from his latest project, a new suit of armor outfitted with several different varieties of anti-AI technology including an entire cyberwarfare suite and EMP projectiles, and grinned widely. Across the table, Bruce couldn’t help the smirk that came along, though he usually felt more dread at Tony’s joy.

Before either of them could say anything, Thor came down the stairs, literally hoisting Hawkeye by the scruff of his collar and carrying him into Tony’s lab. Just behind him came Steve, frantically trying to free Hawkeye. Despite all the commotion, Hawkeye seemed perfectly content to munch away at his sandwich and allow Thor to simply move him as he pleased.

“Brothers, our time has come!” Thor boomed. Hawkeye just kept munching.

“That’s great Thor, but can you put Clint down first?” Steve pleaded, hand resting on Thor’s shoulder.

Tony just stared at Bruce and grinned.

“Time to haze the newbie.”

After a few more minutes of washing – during which time you chatted with Natasha calmly, even as you constantly stared at every part of her luscious form – you decided you’d had enough of the showers. Turning your water off, you stepped free and checked your belongings. Sure enough, the clothes you had discarded were gone. You’d thought you heard something, but couldn’t be sure. Natasha strode out beside you and began toweling off, cocking her head at you.

“What’s wrong? Oh, let me guess, Clint took your clothes? He loves doing that to the new guys. He did it at SHIELD for years.”

“Shoulda figured something like that,” you grumbled, pretending to be upset. “Let me borrow your towel.”

Even though she might not have wanted to ruin the prank, Natasha followed the order and smiled a moment later. “Sure thing. Can’t let Barton have his way too many times, it really goes to his head.”

She whipped her towel away, only having dried about a fourth of her body but ignoring that in favor of tossing you the towel before heading toward her own outfit. You expected about as much from the rest of the Avengers – you’d planted the idea, after all – now you just had to hope your follow-through was solid. Starting with the five presences you could feel gathering outside the door.

“Thanks,” you said, winking at her as you stepped out of the door. She winked back, struggling to get her leg into her outfit. Even a super spy apparently had difficulty with skin-tight catsuits, especially when you hadn’t let her dry herself off.

Flashes of light surrounded you for an instant, and laughter started up – only to immediately die down and be replaced with groans.

“Natasha ruined it, didn’t she? Katniss, grab the towel,” Tony said, readying his camera.

Clint was starting to edge forward as the pulse from your mind went out. Their disappointed faces faded into dull looks as each of them took a brief step back and clutched at their heads. You looked around in a whirl, making sure that each of them had been affected in turn – to your relief, they had. Tony and Bruce were blinking repeatedly and staring at either the floor or the ceiling, Clint and Steve were just sort’ve leaning against the wall and had thousand-yard stares, and Thor was laying on the floor, head lolling back and forth. Scanning their minds, you found no signs of activity other than scrambled thoughts and blankness. With any luck even the geniuses would be like that for at least a few more minutes.

Handy technique, that one. Basically the mental equivalent of an EMP blast, overloading one’s mind and forcing it to shut down temporarily. A lot more effective on people at close range and those who didn’t normally have a whole lot of thought going on, but with as much power as you put into that one you’d hopefully have time to work.

“You can come on out and join us, Natasha,” you said quickly. The redhead stumbled out, walking a bit funny. You hadn’t even intended to hit her, but you didn’t exactly pick targets. Thankfully since you hadn’t focused on her, she still seemed to have enough presence of mind to wander out. The fact that she hadn’t yet had time to put on her outfit was just a bonus; the top half fell away from her waist, leaving her entire top exposed, her jutting nipples a sight that was only matched by her crimson pubes revealed by the open zipper. She didn’t even have the presence of mind to zip what she had on up, much less question her dazed friends.

And you didn’t have the time. Thinking quickly, you summed up the few things you needed to make sure appeared in all their memories – a new member of the team, you, joining in recently. You let them know about your psychic powers, to an extent, but tried to keep how honed they were from their minds. Then you made sure nobody questioned the way you acted; you couldn’t exactly give yourself a free pass, you had to be pretty specific, but with how much time you have you tried to make going anywhere in the Tower and doing anything but physically assaulting one of them a “normal” action for you. You could work out the kinks later.

Speaking of which, you could tell your earlier words had had some unintended effects on Natasha. For instance… she now seemed to think all the Avengers used co-ed showers, and that staring was perfectly normal, for anyone. That was going to be fixed… quickly. Along with numerous other things. You set yourself up as the only co-ed, either for the showers, or for Black Widow’s room, which you quickly appropriated for yourself. Well, not just yourself. You were more than happy to share. Just like the showers! Since you were going to be spending so much time together with her, you made sure it was normal to catch you two anywhere, in any amount of clothing, doing just about anything – they wouldn’t even pay any attention. Would also make your current situation easier without forcing Natasha to finish dressing herself.

They were starting to come out of it. Well, at least Tony and Bruce were. Thor was half-**** and the other two were remembering their multiplication tables or something along those lines. That was going to have to be most of your immediate work. But now that you had a spot here, you had plenty of time for the rest; you could even-

“Do I have to do everything around here?”

Tony reached out and grabbed away your towel before you could react, flashing several pictures before he started looking around, a little puzzled. Apparently he was starting to wonder why he was taking pictures of you in what he thought was a “normal” state of being.

“This was kind of a crappy idea for a prank. Nice going, Artemis.”

“Hey, they can’t all be winners,” Clint said, rubbing at his head and barely catching the camera Tony threw at him. “Wait, wasn’t this your idea?”

“I don’t know. What’s up with hipster beard?” Tony asked as he stepped over Thor’s massive chest. Thor chuckled and rolled over. You were pretty sure you heard snoring after that.

This place… well, it may have been your home now, but it wasn’t going to ever be normal.