Someone else feeling the Hulk’s arm closing around them like that might panic. Might feel the cold wash of inexorable fear. Tony whoops like they’re on a rollercoaster cresting the first hill, and as the Hulk pitches over backward, he slings an arm around his neck and starts laughing again. It’s never an inkling in his mind that he might be in danger here. They might be in the monster-filled woods in some psychopath’s experimental town, but tucked in against the Hulk like this, Tony knows that he’s never been safer in his life.

He’s still laughing as he feels himself getting the full-body ruffle treatment, and he lifts his head enough to look right at the Hulk’s eyes. “You let me win that one, but I’m totally taking it. So that’s—Are you trying to tickle me? I’m not ticklish. Are you?”

And he follows that question up by poking his fingertips into the Hulk’s side and wriggling them over what, if it wasn’t covered by muscle, would probably be ribs.