Steve and Bucky prank JJ and Pete
It was dark, in the corner bedroom. Only the moonlight filtering through the open window, spotlighting an area of floor that consisted of a baseball, half a baseball bat, and the leg of a pair of jeans, broke up the inky blackness. There was a tub under the window held evidence of the afternoon’s misdeeds and the night’s reason for revenge.
The door cracked open, spilling in a little light from the hall and silhouetting two skulking figures as they slithered into the room.
“I’ll take bottom.”
The other figure shushed the speaker, holding out a hand to stop him as one of the boys in the bunk beds stirred. They both waited a beat until the child settled, then let out a breath of relief in unison.
“Thank god,” a new voice whispered. “I thought Peter would never fall asleep as it was. Fine, you take him, but toilet paper first.”
Several rolls were produced from the bag the first speaker was carrying, and thrown around the room, wound around the lamp and crisscrossed through the room to the posts of the bunk bed. When they were satisfied with the tp chaos they’d created, they ducked around and through it, showing the same skills they’d developed avoiding lasers and rifle scopes, to approach the bed itself. Some quick work with feathers and shaving cream, around a few pauses for muffled chuckles, and they were ready to go.
Not, however, before the shorter figure pulled out one last trick.
“You’re wasting vegetable oil?”
“I’m wasting Jarvis’s vegetable oil.”
“He’s going to murder you. And Peg will help, when she sees what you did to the floor.”
“They’ll have to catch me first.”
The oil was spread as they backed out of the room again slowly, closing the door behind them and leaving the room in the same quiet darkness they’d found it in, albeit a far messier darkness.
It wasn’t until the following morning, as Steve and Bucky joked over coffee while Peggy sipped tea, reading a newspaper and occasionally rolling her eyes, that their nocturnal mission was discovered. They heard a shout, then a bang, followed quickly by another, and Steve and Bucky glanced at each other over their mugs.
“DAMMIT DAD!”
“THIS IS NOT A PROPORTIONATE RESPONSE!”
Steve and Bucky grinned at each other, clinking their mugs together. Peggy folded down her newspaper, pinning Steve with a look.
“This is what kept you from coming to bed?”
“They started it,” Steve argued.
“They’re fourteen!”
Bucky took a drink of coffee and smacked his lips. “Fine age to learn to respect his elders.”
Peggy sighed, shaking her head. “You’re all children. And helping them clean up the mess. Before Peter goes home.”
The boys chose that moment to barrel down the stairs, hair sticking up in clumps, bodies covered in oil, feathers, and trailing bits of toilet paper. They were wearing identical expressions of teen outrage, and all three adults burst into laughter.