"Unhelpful," Tony accused. He squatted to watch the moving parts, rolling his eyes as he caught the tail end of Bruce's dubious look. "Has it ever occurred to you that -- " he reached out and snatched one particular part from the jumble -- an oddly shaped piece with an accordion fold two thirds of the way up -- "if you can't dodge every throw, you might want to learn to catch?"

That would have been a good time to throw something else at Bruce, but Tony had other plans for the part in his hand. "It's not that hard, children everywhere learn to play catch with very little difficulty. And besides --"

Standing up again, he held the odd part up to his mouth like a microphone and intoned hollowly, "Not engaging is a form of engagement."

A moment later his expression turned sour -- not really funny. Not just the oracular delivery bringing back the style of the Mandarin, but... Not engaging was how he'd been dealing with this nexus, and yet here he was.

Whatever. He was just here to have some fun.

Tony whispered a few more words to his spare part -- it quit telescoping in and out for a few seconds like it was listening. Then Tony feinted a throw at Bruce before tossing it back to the jumble.

"Hey, princess, you said it, not me." Tony added. "Tell me, when is the last time you wore harem pants?"