The bitter smell of caffeine filled Tony's nose, gently patting him awake. It was one of those very rare days for Tony.
He felt refreshed the second he opened his eyes, and he knew from that moment that today was going to be different.
He wasn't normally a morning person, and even now, he could feel some scent of sleep trying to cling onto him, but unlike other days, he was oddly able to tolerate it. In short, Tony was in a good mood.
His feet carried him toward the kitchen where he was greeted by a sight. For a moment, he thought he was dreaming, for it was a sight he'd thought he'd lost forever.
But here he was, standing in the entrance of the kitchen, looking at the scene of the Avengers, his family, gathered together, eating breakfast.
The pan sizzles as Steve cooked his massive amount of egg and bacon, while Barnes hovers beside him, trying to help (emphasis on trying).
Clint sat near the counter, reading newspaper like a dad. Natasha was sat beside him, stabbing an apple like it have done her wrong in lifetimes. Wanda was eating her sausages in peace while Bruce and Sam were making small talk.
It was so domestic. He felt something twist in his heart, making him sniff and turned his attention toward his cup as he strides into the room.
Damn, he's weirdly expressive today too. He's on top of his game. He hadn't snapped at anyone since he'd arrived, or glare at them for their existence. Good to know the genius could still surprise himself at times.
Talking about genius, Tony realized there was someone missing from the scene.
Almost as if the universe had bend down to his will, Peter walked into the kitchen.
Well, walked was a bit of an overstatement, his eyes were still half closed and it was like his feet were dragging him into the room without him being fully aware of it.
Tony brows furrowed in concern for a second, but quickly pushed the feeling away as he saw the teenager walked toward the cabinet, his hands opening it on autopilot.
He'd probably just went to bed late, Peter's a teenager after all, Tony reasoned with himself. Besides, Karen would tell him if there was something seriously concerning Peter's health, he'd programmed the AI to do just that.
Tony studied Peter for a few more seconds. He watched the teenager take out Cocoa Puffs and was currently in search for bowls. Before the billionaire turned his attention back to the team.
"Wait, we're going to that park tomorrow right?" Tony tuned into Steve's conversation.
"No, Steve," Nat said, her tone monotone as usual but a small smirk lingers on her face, "Grandpa Steve is already losing his memories, you want me to get a handicap?" she teased.
That earned a few laughs, barely concealed smiles and some snort from the table, while Steve rolled his eyes.
This was nice, Tony thought. Just them laughing together like old times. All peaceful and calm.
The billionaire should have known the universe was trying to be sympathetic with him for what to come. He should have sucked in the peacefulness of the moment as much as he could.
"Ha ha. Very funny Romanov," Steve tone was unimpressed but Tony could see there was a hint of amusement there, "But seriously, when is it then?"
"It's in 3 days, Cap," Sam butted in with a wide smile on his face while holding up three fingers as if explaining to a toddler.
"Oh."
"Yeahh," Wanda said.
"Today is just July 23rd."
CLANGG
Startled by the sudden noise, the group whipped their heads towards the source.
The sound was from a bowl. A plastic bowl. It continued to clattered on the marble floor as it spins and shakes for a couple beats before it stilled.
The source that apparently put the bowl there, was Peter Parker, who was paying no attention to the dropped bowl, and staring off into space with wide eyes.
He looked as if he was somewhere between bursting to tears or screaming with excitement as he stood frozen to the spot.
Needless to say, Tony was getting a bit concerned.
"Peter?"
That seems to drag the kid out of his frozen stage and looked back at the team, eyes glinting.
"OH MY GOD!! IT'S JULY 23RD!" he exclaimed, his voice cracking a little while it was raised a couple octaves.
"Oh my god! How did I forget that?" He cried out before halting to a sudden stop.
If it was possible, his eyes grew wider.
"Ned," he said, “I need to text Ned!"
And without explanation, he rushed out the kitchen.
The Avengers stood there, in loss for words, as they heard Peter's door shut. Tony could have swore he heard Peter squealed along the way back.
A beat passed.
"Uh...Friday?"
"Yes, Boss?"
"What just hap-, no scratch that. What is on July 23rd?" Tony finally asked.
"According to my research, some Holidays that are celebrated on July 23rd are,"
The rest of the group turned their attention to the AI, their curiosity getting the better of them.
"Gorgeous Grandma Day, Hot Enough For Ya Day, Mosquito Day, National Vanilla Ice Cream Day, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Day, Sprinkle Day and Yada, Yada, Yada Day"
The silence stretched as they listened to the AI's list, because honestly, what the fuck?
"It is also the birthdays of," Friday continued, "Daniel Radcliffe, Paul Wesley, Slash and much more."
Tony didn't recognize any of the names on the list (well, he was sure he'd heard of the Daniel guy somewhere, but just that) and judging by the other's reaction, they didn't either.
"However, analyzing on Peter's reaction, I would suggest he's talking about the 10th Anniversary of One direction."
The billionaire huffed out into his coffee. One direction, he'd heard Peter talked about them before.
"You couldn't have lead with that, Fri?" he asked.
"My apologies, Boss."
If he didn't know better, he'd say that the AI was amused.
That little shit.
The superheroes took a collected sigh of relief because well, there was nothing life threatening; and at least Peter's not celebrating those weird holidays, seriously, what is a Gorgeous Grandma Day? (Though if peter were to celebrate them, Tony would have celebrated it with him too; but if asked, he'd never admit it)
It wasn't a big deal, Tony had thought, comparing to all they've been through, what could possibly happen?
He was naïve like that.
---
The prologue to the upcoming chaos started 3 hours after the morning incident.
The team did their morning training, an hour after their breakfast, but unlike other days, Peter never came out of his room. Not once.
For a moment or two, in passing, some might hear an occasional groan, or constant aggressive typing, Sam was sure he heard a giggle from inside the room.
Since Peter's room was the first room beside the living room, they could hear blast of song from inside. It was slightly muffled by the walls but nonetheless hearable.
And apparently someone had ordered Friday to play the same one song across the whole tower; the only reason it doesn't happen was because Tony overrode the command last second. Pepper would kill him if "History" by One direction, as Friday informed him, was blasted in the meeting rooms.
Well, she might go easy on her if he'd told her it was Peter who was responsible, but he'd rather not take any chances.
They weren't spared, however, from Peter's loud and off tune singing, that sounded more like sobbing if one were to be completely honest.
The clock strike eleven.
The team was lazing around the living room. Some were playing video games, and losing badly (read: Clint losing to Wanda in Mario Cart), some were reading books or research papers, some were sharpening knifes, some were making blue prints of missiles for their multi-million dollar suits. You know, the usual.
Then, Peter's door creaked open.
Tony and a few others turned their attention to the teenager coming out of his bedroom.
None of them had the chance to greet Peter, before he was striding in through the entrance of the living room.
Peter looked.... frantic. His hair was a mop of wild tangled mess, as if he hadn't comb it since the night before. He was still in his Pajamas and seems to have no intention to change anytime soon.
He wore a determine expression, if not seem a little crazy and very very rushed. He was holding a notebook in one hand, with a pen tucked behind his right ear, a phone was tucked in between his left ear and his shoulder blade while he held his laptop in his other hand.
On the whole, it was quite a sight.
And if Tony lifted his Stark Pad to check Peter's vitals, it was no one’s business but his.
Peter dashed toward the Russian Spy.
"Nat," he started, the Spy eyes were still fixed on her knife but hummed in response.
"You know Morse code, right?"
Natasha lifted her gaze, meeting Peter's, and hummed again, narrowing her eyes in mock suspicion. But Peter didn't notice, or didn't seem to care if he did, and particularly shoved his laptop toward the Spy.
"Can you tell us what this says? We suspect it could be some kind of Morse code and we thought you'd know it. I mean, Ned knows a little bit of Morse Code but he's not 100% fluent, you know?" Peter rambled.
There was a second where none of them spoke. Tony, to this day, didn't know if Natasha was scrutinizing Peter in her weird Spy ways or if she'd simply made the pause for dramatic effects.
"Alright," she finally said.
It took her two minutes to get an answer. One minute was for playing the video once, and another because Peter played it again, 'just in case, you know?'.
"From what I can tell, she could be saying 5 AM EST. But Peter, I doubt that she's trying to send a message in mor-"
"Thank you, thank you, thank you Nat!" Peter interrupted. "Dude! Write that down, 5 AM EST," he spoke into his phone, his tone urgent; and just like that, he went back into his room.
"What just happened?" Sam voiced out the thought of all the other teammates in the room.
Nat looked at him, shrugged and said, "Some blond girl was blinking," then went back to her knifes.
-
"The website is crashing on mine!" A shout was heard an hour later. "I can't fucking get in! Can you?"
The team stopped in their tracks.
They've never heard Peter cursed before, especially not while sounding so frustrated.
"No!" an equally exasperated sound answered back through the phone. "It keep saying we broke the internet... again!"
"Mine's not even loading!"
Steve turned toward Tony, his face was painted in a small grimace, from Peter's cursing or the confusion of what the teenagers were talking about, Tony couldn't tell.
"I didn't know Internet could break."
Tony opened his mouth to reply,
"BRO! BRO! What if...this is a distraction," Peter shouted in his room, "Go check Insta! I'll check Twitter!"
Tony simply sighed, taking a big gulp from his third cup of coffee.
Between the loud sound of music and the constant screaming (and scaring the crap out of Tony each time), maybe he was going to have more than a couple grey hairs by the end of the day.
"Honestly, Rogers," he said, "I don't know anymore."
-
It was 1:30 PM when Peter's door opened for the second time that day.
The team was in the kitchen, talking amongst themselves and enjoying their late lunch. Well, at least trying to as best as they can. They were pretty sure the lyric 'you and me got a whole lot of history' is particularly imprinted into their skull by then.
After Peter's cursing about internet breaking at 12 in the afternoon, they'd thought that would have been the most that'd occur that day.
Oh, they wouldn't even know what hit them.
Peter walked in, an empty cup in hand and a phone clutched in another. He went pass the Avengers and walked toward the coffee pot, already reaching for the handle to pour in a cup.
Tony almost made a comment on it.
Almost.
But stopped himself last minute.
He'd dealt with many things in his life, however, dealing with a moody, and probably sleep deprived, teenager isn't one of them.
But it seems as if Capsicle doesn't get the memo.
"Peter, I don't think it'd be wise to drink coffee, right now. It could really screw up your s-"
Peter snorted. "So you got detention, you screw up."
Confusion swept through the team for the teenager’s choice of reply; well, except for Bucky who looked like he was holding back a smile but failing terribly. And Steve, who was looking embarrassed and … blushing?
"Son," Steve said after he cleared his throat and going back to his Captain America aurora. "I'm just saying-"
Peter raised his hand and shushed.
At this point, Tony was just sitting back and enjoying the show, because the kid literally just shushed Captain America!
"Don't." Peter rubbed his face with his free hand while pouring in the coffee, "I haven't slept properly in 2 days. Whatever you're telling me is going to go in one ear and out the other. Just…Please."
Normally, after hearing what Peter said, Tony would have forced the teenager to go to bed right away; but May had called in advance, informing him of the situation and how he should just let Peter be for a few days.
"It's a long story, Tony." May had said. "Trust me, I've tried...that band really means a lot to him, I don't understand it either but you just got to let him be."
So, now, all Tony did was munched on his chips and watched Cap get render speechless by a 16-year-old.
Peter started making his way out of the kitchen when his phone rang, stopping him mid walk.
"Hey Ned," he said, putting his phone on speaker, while taking a sip out of his cup.
"Liam Tweeted."
It was at this moment that Peter suddenly spits out his coffee, sending it sprayed out in all directions, but especially in one particular direction.
Bruce Banners' face.
Peter quickly pressed the end call button and covered his mouth, his eyes wide in horror as he saw the dark liquid dripped down from the scientist's face.
"Oh my god. I'm so sorry I-" Peter stammered, grabbing a pile of tissues from god knows where, and throwing it at Bruce.
"Wait, no," He said, as he realized his mistake and attempt to catch the flying pieces of tissue paper, and almost spilling his remaining coffee.
"Peter, it's alright," Bruce said putting his hand on the kid's shoulder, who was blabbing out apologies after apologies.
"It's honestly fine, kid. I'd dealt with worse."
He gave a smile toward Peter, who looked as if he's about to cry any moment.
It took Bruce a couple more tries to convince the teenager that he’s not mad and a couple more for Peter to stop apologizing, and finally giving in.
Peter stared down at the poor excuse of tissues that was laid around them, some soaked in liquid, some still brand new.
"Umm... so, I'll uh keep umm..."
"Yeah, go ahead Pete," Bruce replied, "Your friend said something about someone tweeting, didn't he?"
Peter's attention snapped back, any trace of tiredness gone and replaced with adrenaline.
"Oh yes! Liam Payne tweeted!" he exclaimed like it was the most exciting thing in life, “I can’t believe my crystal manifestation worked!”
Tony is definitely gonna go grey by the end of the week.
-
It was, what could only be described as, a pure chaos. At least on Peter’s part.
The rest of them were merely watching it happen, but it was like watching a hurricane take place. Peter’s energy effected everyone around, and don’t even get them started on the mood swings.
Peter came in and out of his room for a number of times after lunch. Most of the time, he would gather as much food he can find and went back into his room without speaking a single word. It was almost like they were having de ja vu whenever they saw him.
The only good thing that happened, in Tony’s oh so humble opinion, was when Peter came to hug him with a wide smile on his face because ‘Liam is happy’, whatever that meant. Not that Tony cared, as he hugged back and made a mental note to keep making whoever this Liam, happy.
It was 5pm when Peter came out of his room, for the last time that day.
Instead of walking into the kitchen like he normally does, he walked straight toward the living room cabinet; the team pauses their activities as they watched Peter worked like he's in a trance.
He searched through the cabinet before pulling out a handful of candles and making his way back to, you’ve guessed it, his room.
In hindsight, Tony should have known not to ask, but curiosity killed the cat and all (or dogs, Tony like dogs better; cats are little assholes, they remind him too much of himself.)
“What are you doing with those candles, Pete?”
Peter turned around.
He stayed still for a moment before raising the candles like a warrior toasting wine at a feast and shouted.
“I SHALL SUMMON LARRY STYLINSON! MANIFEST THOSE FOLKS TO ARRIVETH! LIKETH A RAG SOAK’D UP SPILL’D WAT’R, WE SHALL SOAKETH UP THIR PRESENCE!”
Yeah.
Tony shouldn’t have asked.
And if in a few days, he saw Peter burning up envelopes, lets just say he’d learned his lesson and didn’t questioned it.
The end.