Chapter Text
"Okay," Peter huffs, rolling across the bed until he can get out and trip across the room to the door.
"Wha— 'Okay'? You believe me just like that?" Harley sputters, and Peter stops halfway through opening the door to smile at his boyfriend.
"Yes. You're stupid clever, Harley, I have no doubt you've managed to figure out a way to get us there."
They walk downstairs together, and Peter frowns at the lack of voices. Is his team still here? Are they still asleep? His frown deepens when his hearing picks up on several more heartbeats than there should be. Harley looks suspiciously excited by his side, so Peter relaxes, expecting this to be Harley's solution.
They walk into the kitchen and Peter is confronted with a scene he never thought he'd ever have to deal with. His AcaDec team are all seated at Harley's rickety kitchen table, staring slack jawed at the Avengers team crowding the small room. Bucky is at the stove, cooking what is frankly an obscene amount of pancakes before flipping them onto the stack in the middle of the table where Tony very helpfully passes them along to... whoever is next in the queue? Peter has no idea, but he can't be bothered to figure it out.
"Aren't you supposed to be in Tokyo?" He asks, voice gravelly from sleep.
"Aren't you supposed to be in Alabama?" Tony snarks back, and his team turns to face him. Charles, who had just taken a massive bite of his pancake, chokes upon seeing Peter, and quickly turns red from lack of oxygen. Peter moves to go over and attempt the Heimlich or something, when red mist wraps around the boy's throat, and his coughing stops abruptly. Charles looks over to Wanda in awe, whilst Seymour nudges him excitedly.
"Dude! The Scarlet Witch just cast a spell on you!" They trade grins, and Peter just smiles at their fanboying, going over to the cupboards and reaching up to grab a plate for him and Harley. The room goes silent again behind him, and he turns around, confused by the looks he's receiving from his team.
"What?" He asks, and Cindy dramatically feigns fainting onto Betty, who shoves her off with a laugh. "What?" He repeats, more confused than ever.
"Darlin', I am begging you to stop talking before I embarrass myself in front of everyone," Harley pleads with him, blushing furiously. Tony scrunches his nose up in disgust whilst the Avengers start laughing behind him, all seeming to understand something Peter doesn't. He goes to ask again, but stops, shooting a confused look at Harley. MJ and Ned are giggling to each other, definitely understanding, so Peter directs his raised brows at them.
"Harley's horny for your morning voice," Ned explains, and Peter smirks at his boyfriend.
"And the team is horny for your abs," MJ carries on, and Peter freezes, remembering his current shirtless state.
"Not so puny after all, huh Parker?" Flash asks, and Peter barks out a surprised laugh. The comment breaks the awkwardness that had settled over the group and they all laugh, right as Steve dishes out a fresh load of mini pancakes. Peter swats away Clint's reaching hand and holds out his plate right in front of Tony.
"Say 'please'," the man teases, and Peter just rolls his eyes, stabbing his fork into the pile and taking away several, sticking his tongue out all the while.
"No." He ignores the sputtering and snatches the syrup off the table on his way past, drenching the pancakes and hopping up on the counter Harley's leaning against. They take turns using the fork to eat a pancake, huddled together in a small corner of the kitchen, ignoring the rest of the room.
Bucky comes up just as they finish the pile and dumps a whole pan-full onto the plate, then walks off without another word back to Steve. They dig into the new batch enthusiastically, still hungry. Long after he stops eating, Harley continues to act like he's eating so it doesn't seem like Peter is having almost the entire stack to himself, and he can have enough to sate his metabolism.
"маленький паук! (Little Spider)"
"мама паук, (Mama Spider)" Peter greets, throwing the syrup across the room to her. "как прошла миссия? (How was the mission)"
"мы его не нашли, но получили больше информации о его бизнесе. (We didn't find him, but we got more information on his business)" Natasha grumbles, stabbing her pancake aggressively. Peter nods, seeing how annoyed she really is.
"извини, ты хочешь спарринговать позже? (I'm sorry, do you want to spar later)" She looks up and smiles, nodding gratefully.
"эй, а что если я тоже расстроюсь? (Hey, what if i'm upset too)" Bucky whines, and Peter rolls his eyes in sync with Natasha.
"Hey Peter?" Sally asks, and he directs his attention over to her, finding himself confronted by eight identical expressions of shock. "Are you speaking Russian?"
"No?" Peter squeaks, having forgotten to censor himself around his team. Sally raises a disbelieving brow at him, and he winces. "Yes?"
"I envy your life," Abe announces, tossing his fork down. "You have a hot as shit boyfriend, clearly know all of the Avengers extremely well, enough that you can tell Tony Stark 'no' like it's nothing, have abs for days, can speak Russian, and tease the White Wolf like that's normal!"
"Thank you," Harley says, smirking at the blush Abe immediately develops. Peter thinks Abe might have forgotten Harley could hear him.
Tony's watch beeps loudly, and he silences it, then claps his hands to get everyone's attention. "Right, you little rats have twenty minutes to get ready, then you get the chance to take a ride in the Avengers quinjet so you can get to your little nerd competition on time." The team just stares at him for a long moment and Tony stares back, expectant. "What are you waiting for?"
That seems to be exactly what they were waiting for because the kitchen is suddenly an explosion of movement as all his decathlon members scramble to run out of the room. Peter hurries after them, laughing with Harley at their excitement. They follow them back through to the living room where they're all scrambling to find their bags among the pile.
"Okay! All the girls, you're gonna get changed in my sister's room, all the boys, you're gonna come with me and Peter. Mr Teacher Dude, you can have the bathroom all to yourself, you lucky man." Peter snorts at the way he speaks to Mr Harrington, but the teacher is already speeding down the hall, so he just watches in bemusement. Harley leads them all through the house and directs MJ to Abby's room, then herds all the boys into his own.
They get changed to the background music of the boys' chatting, and Peter finds considerable likeness to changing in the locker rooms at school. Peter is just yanking on his shoe when Tony's voice echoes through the house.
"FIVE MINUTES!"
Aggressive cursing follows from nearly everyone as they stomp their feet into shoes and shove everything back into their bags, then spill out of the room just as all the girls tumble out of Abby's room. Peter stands back and watches as they all push and shove each other, rushing down the stairs like a stampede. He and Harley follow behind at a more sedate pace, then burst out laughing when they walk out of the front door.
The entire team is basically vibrating with excitement as they stand in front of the quinjet, whilst the majority of the present Avengers look on with expressions of horror at the students... and Mr Harrington, who appears to be equally excited.
The ramp descends and Steve herds the team on, directing them into the seats that line the sides of the aircraft. Once they're all seated and buckled in, the Avengers pile in and there's a mad scramble for what seats are left, then teasing directed at whoever didn't get one. Peter considers revealing himself as Spider-Man just then, if just to be able to hang from the ceiling like he usually does whilst riding the quinjet. Tony could have NDAs at their destination by the time they land, so really, is there anything stopping him?
"Peter, no." Tony orders from the pilot seat.
"Fucking mindreader," he grumbles, leaving Harley's side and tossing himself onto Bucky. He settles onto the super soldier's lap then leans back and stretches out on Steve, who just laughs and cards his fingers through his curls, making him hum happily and bury further into him.
"Please tell me I'm not the only one seeing Peter lying on top of Captain America and White Wolf, because I'm starting to think I'm going crazy," Mr Harrington whispers, and Peter bites back a laugh, which is only made harder when he can feel the silent chuckles of both men under him that also heard the teacher.
"Believe him now, Flash?" Ned taunts, also whispering.
"How could I not?" The boy hisses back. "I need to apologise, I was so cruel for no reason."
Bucky tenses underneath him and Peter tenses with him. "You're forgiven!" He calls over, then pats Bucky's knee to placate him. Flash chokes something from across the jet, clearly not expecting Peter to have heard him, then follows it up with a meek "thank you" that finally relaxes the protective assassin.
"Okay then, Mr Teacher Dude, where is this competition?" Peter rolls his head over to see Harley toss himself into Tony's lap, then start fiddling with the controls as Mr Harrington nervously rattles off the address. "Mhm, and when does it start?"
"Ten o'clock."
"Best hold on then!" Peter grips Bucky and the seat with sticky hands, just in time for Harley to yank a lever and the jet to lurch with the sudden increase in speed. If it wasn't for his sticky hands, he probably would have skidded right off Bucky's lap and onto the floor. Clint was holding onto one of the bars overhead and goes flying, only avoiding crashing into the wall because of Wanda shooting out tendrils of magic to collect him and Natasha and bring them back. Clint is deposited onto Sam's lap, whilst Natasha settles into Wanda's own.
"Fuck you, Harley," Clint shouts over.
"Stop fucking swearing, Clint, there's children here!"
"Language," Bucky chides them, and Steve just groans.
"It was one time, and you weren't even there, Buck."
"And it is my sworn duty to never let you forget it, Stevie."
"You hear that, Mr H? You and Captain America are the same," Seymour announces, and the decathlon team dissolves into laughter at the teacher's red face. Steve scowls and flicks Peter's forehead for laughing, which only makes them all laugh harder.
"Uh, Mr Stark?" Mr Harrington tries to catch his attention, twisting his hands nervously in his lap. Tony spins the chair and shoves Harley off his lap so he can look properly at the teacher, uncaring when the boy hits the floor and groans loudly.
"Yes?"
"Um," Mr Harrington's eyes flicker over to Harley, concerned, "I don't mean to rush you, but it's 09:55, and, like I said, the competition starts at ten."
"Well it's a good thing we're here then, isn't it?" Tony smirks and spins back around, and Peter feels the jet begin to lower.
Steve shoves him off his lap and Bucky scrambles to catch him as Steve walks by, sticking his tongue out at Peter. He plucks his shield from where it's mounted on the wall and slots it into it's hold on his back, then faces the students as the rest of the Avengers all get up and collect their weapons too.
"For no other reason other than to embarrass Peter, we're going to do a dramatic entrance, so all of you stand up!" They follow his instructions and Peter takes over, standing at the front of the group.
"Look your best, because you get one chance at this and I don't want to listen to you whine for eternity that your hair was wrong in the pictures that will undoubtedly be taken of you." They all scramble to check each other and fix their hair, clothes, etc. Peter straightens his own yellow jacket and faces the front, throwing one last glare at Steve, as they're totally surrounded by the Avengers team.
Harley darts forward and kisses his cheek before Tony yanks him away and he joins Bruce near the back of the group.
"Get ready!" Tony shouts, then hits the big button next to the ramp. Nanobites crawl over him and he's encased in his suit before the ramp even opens. There's a loud clunk and it starts to shift downwards. Screaming and cheering immediately fill the air, and Peter can't help but grin at the sound of it.
The ramp touches down and the group starts forward, Steve and Tony leading them down. They're encased in the middle, hardly visible to those outside the circle but they all keep serious, confident faces on, prepared for the moment they're revealed. They march down the ramp and come to a stop as the event organiser steps up to meet them, looking worried by their sudden appearance.
"I-Iron Man, Cap-Captain America, I must say it is an honor. But I must ask; is everything alright? Are we safe here?"
"Perfectly safe," Tony soothes her, and Peter can hear the smirk in his voice.
"We're just here to drop something off," Steve continues, and as one, the Avengers step away, revealing Midtown's Academic Decathlon team in their centre.
And everything goes silent.