Tony stands with his hands on his hips glaring at Bucky because, for he fifth day in a row, he has disrupted Tony’s sleeping to try and curl up next to him. “Vampires literally need to sleep once every twenty years, Barnes, and you couldn’t just let me sleep for a dew days?” he asks.
Bucky hangs his head looking very much liked a kicked dog, something that was ironic given that he’s a werewolf. “I missed you,” he admits and Peter snorts, earning glares from Bucky and Tony.
“Don’t you look at us like that, you should have kept him out of my lab,” Tony tells him.
He shrugs, “I thought it would be funny to see what happened,” he says shamelessly. It wasn’t like Tony slept long- usually a week or so, which was a whole lot less time than the usual twenty or so years most vampires kept with- but it wasn’t like vampires needed the sleep like humans did. Mostly they decided to go into comas to pass time out of boredom rather than a genuine need.
“I just wanted some damn peace and you two couldn’t let me have a week?” Tony asks, throwing his hands up in the air.
“You were gone for like three days,” Bucky says in his defense.
Tony rolls his eyes, “I was gone for three hours before you were all but shoving your nose up my ass. You have Peter to go harass, why didn’t you go bug him?” Tony asks.
Bucky shrugs, “he was doing celestial things and his magic makes my nose itch.” Bucky, Peter was certain, was allergic to celestials but he had no proof aside from his constant sneezing whenever Peter manipulated something around him.
“Then you could have waited until he was done with his celestial stuff- wait, you didn’t make like seventeen dick topiaries in my front yard again, did you?” Tony asks him and Peter looks away.
“Nope,” he lies.
This earns him a long, drawn out sigh, “how old are you?” Tony asks in a serious tone.
“Roughly a thousand years old but in my defense if I didn’t have a sense of humor I would have either gotten real creative in attempting to find methods to commit suicide or I would have gone nuts like my shitbag dad and tried to take over the universe,” he says. So dick topiaries it was, plus they were hilarious, and human reactions to them were even more hilarious.
“I’d prefer if you didn’t go crazy, my nose itched for weeks after Ego let lose that… flower thing,” Bucky says, wrinkling his nose. So Peter knew- it was how he met Bucky and Tony. He had been after Ego and in his attempts to find his father he ran into what passed as a supernatural police force not that it was doing a very good job at fixing shit. It didn’t help that Tony and Steve didn’t get along at all and that was at least partially due to the fact that vampires and fairies hate each other. Peter had no idea what the history was and after witnessing the blow out fights Tony and Steve had he was now afraid to ask.
It was pretty funny when Steve found out Tony was dating his best friend though, even if the resulting magical explosion was less fun. Peter, thanks to his inherited celestial power, had been able to contain it just fine but still. So when he found Tony and Co chasing after Ego they had all been pretty suspicious of another celestial at least until Tony decided to literally take a bite out of him because he smelled something off about Peter’s blood. What he smelled was Peter’s mother’s DNA but instead of asking he decided biting Peter to taste what he smelled was a better option. To be fair it worked in Peter’s favor when he ended up with an entire team of supernatural creatures at his disposal. They all captured Ego, Peter killed him, and they all lived happily ever after, yada, yada.
Actually that wasn’t even remotely true- Peter lost his powers for some time until he figured out how to make his own light like Ego had, Tony and Bucky ended up getting weird with each other thanks to their mutual attraction to Peter, who suggested monogamy was stupid, and Steve freaked out over that too. It was a long three months when it all happened but things have since settled down and now Peter got his kicks from watching the hilarity that was two totally different species trying to get along. Celestials didn’t really have a set culture, or a set of customs, or pretty much any defining traits so he got the privilege or watching Bucky and Tony battle it out. Werewolves were a social species that ran in packs and vampires were a solitary species that preferred to be alone. Tony didn’t care for solitude thanks to his extroverted nature, but he was hardly inclined to pack life either. The amount of times Peter has pulled out the popcorn to watch Tony argue with Bucky that being social did not mean he was a team player was high and it never got old.
“Yeah, screw Ego and his flower thing. And please get your dick topiaries out of my yard; I don’t want to hear TMZ whine about them again. Or Homeowner’s Association,” Tony mumbles, rolling his eyes. It was his fault for getting a house in the suburbs, Bucky and Peter wanted something outside the city but no, Tony wanted to be closer to the office.
“The Homeowner’s Association can suck my dick. If Karen can put those fucking ugly gnomes in her yard without being arrested we can have dick topiaries,” Peter argues.
“They’ll whine about the kids,” Tony says.
“Half the kids here have dicks, they’ll hardly be surprised,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes and causing Peter to snort.
“He makes a point,” Peter tells Tony, who sighs.
“I’m going back to bed. Bucky, go cuddle with Peter. Peter, make sure Bucky doesn’t harass me while I try to sleep, and Bucky, make sure Peter gets rid of the topiaries. Good night,” he tells them and with that he takes off down to his lab again.
Bucky looks at Peter and he grins, “I’m going to make them vagina topiaries now,” he says and Bucky smiles back at him as they both rush outside.
*
Tony stares at the three giant vagina topiaries in his yard while some annoying guy from the Homeowner’s Association with a mint green sweater ties around his neck goes on about inappropriate bushes. “-Simply can’t have suggestive-” the guy says and Tony signs, having had enough of this.
“You have no idea why you’re here. Your eldest child has a soccer game at seven and you’re going to be late,” Tony tells him, holding eye contact as he says the words. He wasn’t exactly fond of forcing people to think the way he wanted them to but he also had no patience for dealing with the Homeowner’s Association when Linda painted her house the most hideous robin’s egg blue last year with no repercussions.
The guy blinks a couple times, obviously trying to shake Tony’s vampire influence but it doesn’t work. “How come I never see you during the day?” he asks, his voice slightly dazed.
Tony rolls his eyes, “I’m a vampire,” he says and walks back into his house where Peter and Bucky are waiting with hot chocolate spiked with blood.
*
Bucky smells Cathy before he sees her and he all but shoves Peter in front of him. Peter, because he had a terrible sense of smell or maybe celestials didn’t have enhanced human senses at all, looks surprised with this until he sees Cathy. Then he glares at Bucky over his shoulder as he scurries back into the house to watch Peter deal with their neighbor trying to get him to get rid of the vagina topiaries in the yard.
“He better not turn them back into dicks,” Tony says, sneaking up behind him. It wasn’t easy to sneak up on a werewolf but vampires were near silent and they had no scent aside from whatever clothing they might be wearing, or if they were wearing perfumes of any kind. Usually Tony wore a distinctive cologne but today he wasn’t wearing it so he smelled more like Peter and Bucky than himself.
“Do you really think that would be worse than if he turned them into something new?” Bucky asks. Peter, as if he heard Bucky’s statement, throws his hands into the air and turns to the topiaries and an arm raised. Tony and Bucky groan because now they were going to have to deal with a new round of rumors about their species. Everyone knew they weren’t human, but thanks to Peter’s ridiculous powers no one knew what they were. Bucky found that amusing because Tony insisted on making vampire jokes every ten seconds and Bucky hardly kept his species a secret but after being alive for nearly one hundred years he’s learned that humans were fucking stupid. They were all confused because they kept assuming they were the same species and Peter’s powers were vastly different from the seemingly normal nature Bucky had, and the almost normal nature Tony had.
“I swear to god if he turns those topiaries into us…” Tony mumbles, gently leaning into Bucky as he looks out the front window at Peter. Cathy watches in awe as the bushes change shape and Bucky raises an eyebrow as the others move too. When Peter is done there are several new bushes in the yard and it looks like he’s recreated a war scene.
“Jesus Christ,” Tony mumbles, “even I want the vaginas back now.” Cathy looks ten times more annoyed and Peter looks pleased with himself.
“I guess our yard is finally more ugly than Karen’s,” he says, wrinkling his nose at the thought of the gnomes in her yard. They scared Steve every time they walked past and he looked over. Why he kept looking was beyond Bucky but he wasn’t fond of the garden decorations and neither were the neighborhood kids.
*
Peter looks at the note and snorts out loud, “shit Tony, you’re going to want to go into a vampire coma again after reading this,” he says and passes the note off to Tony. Bucky immediately shoves himself into Tony’s personal space because personal space didn’t exist to werewolves. Better than T’Challa though- he was a werepanther and they also had no concept of personal space but they were sneaky about it. Peter has found him in or on things he didn’t expect to find a sovereign leader in or on far too many times.
“I didn’t get to go into my vampire coma because someone,” he looks at Bucky, “kept licking my face to see if I died. And someone else thought it was funnier to film it than stop it,” he says, glaring at Peter.
He shrugs, “guilty as charged, now read the note,” Peter tells him.
Tony rolls his eyes and reads over the note. He looks up and gives Peter an ‘are you fucking kidding me’ look before he looks back down at the note. “Does Helen really think we care if we’ve been uninvited to the neighborhood barbeque we’ve never shown up to?” he asks.
“Damn, sometimes I show up long enough to make off with a few plates of burgers,” Bucky says and Peter snorts and starts laughing while Tony lets out another sigh.
“Really, Bucky?” he asks.
Bucky shrugs, “they’re homemade and none of us can cook. Can you blame me?” he asks. Peter can’t given that the only time they ever tried to cook a pot, and it wasn’t even the pot they were using, ended up lodged in the ceiling, Bucky had to get a hair cut because his ends were crispy, and Tony got launched through a wall. There had been a kitchen remodel and a vow that none of them were to ever step foot in their pretty new kitchen again.
“Fine. Peter, change the topiaries so Helen stops whining. I’m going to write a passive aggressive note about Andre’s ugly yellow door culturally insensitive garden,” Tony says.
Peter frowns, “his garden is culturally insensitive?” he asks.
“It is now,” Tony says as he walks out of the kitchen. Peter shrugs and goes back out front to deal with the topiaries.
*
Stephen stands outside of Tony Stark’s house and he has to appreciate what Peter did with the topiaries this time. Bucky sticks his head out the door, caching Stephen’s attention, “what do you want?” he asks, correctly guessing that this wasn’t a friendly visit.
“The Homeowner’s Association seems to think that I’ll be able to talk some kind of sense into you guys with these topiaries but if I’m honest I think it’s hilarious that Peter turned them into the Homeowner’s Association complaining at you three depicted as angels,” he says. Tony Stark alone was no angel but it was hilarious nonetheless.
Bucky looks out at the topiaries and smiles, “yeah. Better than Karen’s ugly gnomes,” he says and Stephen wrinkles his nose.
“I banish them every two weeks but she has an endless supply of them or something. They never stay gone for long.” He lived across the road and the gnomes were a downright hideous view but the Homeowner’s Association liked Karen so they didn’t complain about her ugly garden trinkets lowering the community value. Of course they complained to Stephen that his touches of Nepal inspired garden trinkets were a problem but Karen’s hideous gnomes didn’t get the boot. Neither did his pretty flower houses after he asked if they seriously told him his cultural background was ugly enough to lower resale value on the surrounding houses. It was one of many reasons why he was confused as to why they all sent him here.
His best guess was that they’re all supernatural creatures even if Stephen’s brand of supernatural creature was more human than not. Theoretically any human could be what he is. Either way he was hardly going to complain about Peter’s stupid bushes, he just wanted to see what everyone was complaining about and why Marlin seemed unable to lose the notion that his son was late for a soccer game.
“Well,” Bucky says, drawing Stephen from his thoughts, “they aren’t going anywhere and according to Tony they’re now a meme, which is only going to encourage Peter so tell the Homeowner’s Association to get used to the topiaries.”
Stephen shrugs, “sure. It’s not like I care either way. Oh, and next time you send in a passive aggressive letter can you throw in a complaint about Martha’s husband always burning things on the barbeque and smelling up the whole neighborhood with his disgusting cooking?” he asks.
Bucky wrinkles his nose immediately, which Stephen had counted on. Werewolves had incredibly sensitive noses, there was no way he didn’t notice it even if he lived on the almost opposite end of the suburb from the offending source of the stench. “Will do. Tony has already complained about pretty much everyone though. Including Debra and her hideous baby pink everything.”
“Rose gold does not belong on fences,” Stephen agrees, “the woman reminds me of Delores Umbridge.” Bucky nods his agreement and with that they part ways, Stephen throwing a spell over his shoulder that turned the supposedly offensive topiaries bright red just to shake things up.