A/N: This one's just a bit of fun for a friend who could use some cheering up. Smartass family fluff/silliness ensues!

It all started with a hat.

A fedora, to be exact, a very dark grey that could have passed for black, the band of black around hardly providing any contrast at all. It was a smooth hat, sleek and looking like it belonged in the 1950's, a mafia hat maybe, and therefore it was not a hat that looked like it belonged, ever, on Peter Parker's head.

At least, that was Peter's opinion.

But he was out shopping with Gwen (read: carrying things for Gwen—not that he minded because he really shouldn't have been around Gwen at all, but he just couldn't seem to stay away when she asked him to come with her), and perhaps taking pity on his lack of anything (they'd even stopped by a few photography stores just for him, but he'd shook his head and gotten nothing), she snagged the hat from the shelf and plopped it onto his head.

She'd stepped back, hands propped on her hips and head tilted just so as she eyed his new fashion statement critically, and before Peter could get over the roadblock in his mouth that prevented him from telling her that that look suited her very well, she had nodded, satisfied.

"It looks good on you. You should get it."

Well when Gwen put it that way, was he really going to ever say no—

And she sealed the deal by grinning and continuing, "It could be a fashion statement. The photographer in a flashy fedora."

Peter shuffled awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and said, "I'm not Indiana Jones."

And then she'd really sealed the deal by leaning in and saying, "No, you're not. You're better," and honestly, Peter had never stood a chance under that onslaught.

Even when she laughed and added, "Even though Indiana Jones never wore spandex."

Peter rolled his eyes skyward and said, "It's always the spandex they go after." But he held onto the hat and something (he had no idea what, truly, it couldn't have been Gwen's words at all) convinced him to buy it, and then he had a fedora.

She snagged it out of his hand when they left the store and put it again on his head, tilting it carefully, and Peter hadn't had the heart to remove it, so he wore it the entire way to her home.

And then he wore it the entire way to his "home", at least his current residence during his internship, and that was really what set off the entire disaster.

Living in the Avengers tower had its perks. Aside from the utter coolness factor that was living with these heroes, it was the fanciest place imaginable—at least, in what Peter cared about, which was science and tech and all of those things that he hadn't had all that much access to in high school. While he visited his Aunt often, that merely reminded him of just how state of the art (or beyond, even) things were in Tony Stark's place of residence (or one of them, at least).

For one, and the thing to greet Peter when he walked in, there was JARVIS.

The AI greeted him with a, "Welcome home, Peter. Excellent choice in headwear."

Peter had given up trying to figure out how JARVIS worked a long time ago (well, that was a lie; he hadn't given up, per se, he'd just gotten a little stuck), but somehow JARVIS seemed utterly unbothered by such things as, "You're a computer, you shouldn't know fashion or what I'm wearing today or that it's new."

Peter didn't say that, of course, because offending JARVIS was a one-way trip to making one's life suffering in a place where JARVIS ruled supreme.

It didn't stop him from wondering, though, because JARVIS couldn't read minds (yet, and wasn't that a terrifying thought, a mind-reading JARVIS, Peter reminded himself to never, ever tell Tony that idea). So he wondered, but in the interest of self-preservation his only response was an awkward grin and, "Thank you, Jarvis."

The AI responded with something likely very polite, but Peter didn't hear it. His Spidey Senses were tingling, after all, and he knew what to do when that happened.

He ducked.

The arrow soared over his head, hitting the wall with a peculiar suction sound, and there was a bit of a curse from somewhere rather higher than Peter's head. Cautiously, Peter straightened from the crouch he'd fallen into at first sign of threat, scanning near the ceiling for his attacker. Surely enough, he found the archer crouched on top of some cabinets (there was space between the cabinets and the ceiling? News to him-).

For some odd reason, Clint had the tendency to seek higher ground when on the offensive. The fact that he was now perched up there warned Peter that he was very much under attack.

So he did what any self-respecting teen hero would do when under attack by Hawkeye.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing?" he exclaimed, hands up to fend off more arrows and up around his head.

He couldn't even think of anything he'd done recently to make the archer even vaguely homicidal, so this really wasn't fair. If he was going to die by arrow, he wanted at least to deserve it. It would really be even better if he didn't die by arrow at all, but Clint had his bow up and was nocking another arrow—

…With a foam top.

Actually, at third glance that didn't look like Clint's bow at all. Actually, it looked a bit like a Nerf bow, one of those cheesy ones every child got their hands on at least once (and then never again when harassed parents were shot with fake arrows)

Peter really wasn't surprised that there was said bow in Clint's hands, because Peter was rather certain that Clint had owned at one point every single type of bow that existed, including toy bows. And Clint (Uncle Clint, when Peter was confident in his reflexes and his ability to dodge things, because when Clint threw things, they were always on target), well, Clint was the likeliest suspect when it came to pranks and silly things in the Avengers Tower, if only because Clint was the most normal. At least in Peter's opinion.

So after a long and hard mission that left everyone bone-weary, Clint generally found a way to make everyone laugh, even if it meant doing something to one of Stark's robots so that the other man would threaten to mess with his wiring (and sometimes gave chase) and even Natasha would smile.

Peter generally worked on a similar wavelength to Uncle Clint, which is why he felt hideously betrayed by the fact that he was under attack by Nerf bow now.

Clint's lips twitched, but Peter wasn't certain if that was out of amusement or annoyance. He suspected the second; Clint was never particularly pleased when he missed his target, even if said target was Peter's head and thus Peter couldn't entirely sympathize.

"You can't come in here wearing a hat like that and expect anything different," came the nonchalant response, Clint shouldering the Nerf bow as if it were his usual, rather more deadly bow.

Peter would have told him how ridiculous that looked if he hadn't been so distracted by his words.

"What's wrong with it?" he said, a little defensively, even if he knew entirely what was wrong with it, and that was that it suited Gwen Stacy and therefore didn't suit Peter Parker. His fingers reached up to brush the brim of the hat cautiously, and yep, his sudden and frantic attempts at dodging Clint's arrows hadn't dislodged his hat.

He wasn't sure why he was so protective over it, all things considered (actually that was a lie, he knew exactly why he was so protective over it), but he had no intentions of allowing Clint to shoot it.

Clint hopped down from the top of the cabinet, making the entire movement seem far too easy and just cocked his head, offering Peter a grin that was entirely too amused for comfort. "Peter, Spider-Man does not wear fedoras."

Well, a statement like that (even if true), could not go unchallenged. "He could if he wanted to—"

"Best stop while you're ahead," Clint advised, eyebrows arching. "The only one here who that fedora would look good on is—"

"Me," Natasha interjected, sliding into the kitchen from nowhere like she was so good at doing, and Peter just blinked, because he was no longer surprised by something so mundane as a master spy/assassin thing appearing out of nowhere.

"Exactly," Clint continued. "Me."

Natasha rolled her eyes skyward delicately, a look solely for Peter, and he felt his expression morph into a smile despite himself. It was hard to be annoyed when Aunt Natasha was trying to cheer you up with subtle gestures.

"Oh—Stark was looking for you, Peter," Natasha said, the 'remembrance' staged flawlessly, as if she really were just remembering it right then, except Peter knew that Natasha didn't just forget things. "You'd better hurry, before he forgets that he called for you."

Her tone was nonchalant, but from the quirk of her lips, Peter gathered that Tony was in yet another of his Inventing Moods. They deserved the capital letters, because at any given moment he might shut all of them out, only reappearing four days later half-dead and carrying a pan that would cook the perfect omelet on its own because he was struck with the idea halfway through renovating the Iron Man suit.

It was one of Tony's…Quirks. If a quirk could be quite that intense.

With that in mind, Peter was quick to nod, though he did have to ask, "He asked you to tell me?"

And Natasha actually accepted messenger duty? It was a baffling thing to try to wrap his head around.

It was clear that Natasha caught the underlying meaning to his question, because her lips curved into a rather self-satisfied smile. "He's working on a few things for me for my next mission."

Clint, who'd been leaning against the counter and observing the exchange, straightened at that, brow furrowing. "Hey, no fair! New Stark Toys should be shared amongst teammates and fellow human assassins."

Peter just shook his head, missing Natasha's response as he moved to leave the kitchen. She was right, after all. If Tony got distracted, he might not ever let Peter into his lab and that would be unfortunate. Obviously it wouldn't be the end of the world, because his day had already been pretty great, but sure it'd be a bit of a downer—

And then the rather ear-splitting alarm that denoted that it was time for the Avengers to assemble once again went off, and Peter gave the ceiling a Look.

"Really? Really? I didn't even say it out loud—"

But then Tony was there, stepping past him to go see what the fuss was about, and he offered arched eyebrows and a look that was mostly amusement and sass. "Nice hat."

Standing in front of Tony's lab, Peter just facepalmed and sighed.

"There's nothing wrong with my hat!"

There was nothing worse than Avengers missions, sometimes, except for maybe English homework.

English homework on Hamlet.

It was a toss-up.

But Peter—or, rather, Spider-man—was not an actual Avenger. And thus he couldn't actually go with them on Avengers missions.

The tower was horribly quiet when he was the only one on its upper floors.

Peter had finally taken his hat off; it sat innocently on the table in front of him. "Do your homework while we go save the city," Peter grumbled, propping his cheek on his hand and sighing. "Right, like that's going to happen."

The hat didn't answer, but then, it was just a fedora.

There was another long pause in which Peter pondered how frustrating the situation was—

And then he sighed again, scooping up the hat and placing it on his head again at a jaunty angle. "JARVIS, how are they doing?"

"While there appear to no major injuries, they seem to be having difficulties keeping the entirety of their enemy contained." JARVIS was the same cool, calm presence as ever, despite Peter's attempt to detect any concern in that crisp voice.

He considered that.

Well. When asked later, he could always say JARVIS was concerned. That would work. It was just about accurate, too. JARVIS was totally concerned. He just wasn't showing it.

…It was a flimsy excuse but Peter didn't really care; he was quick to dart off to get suited up.

All things considered, Peter had made better life choices.

He'd made worse life choices too, it's just that none were currently coming to mind.

"We had it under control," Tony scoffed, now de-suited and striding into the tower, the others trailing behind him. Steve gave him a sympathetic look, but for once entirely backed Tony. "You're not an official Avenger. You should be careful doing things like that. It could get you into trouble."

"You don't want that connection being drawn," came Natasha's cool voice, though her opinion on the entire fiasco was rather hard to read. "If they connect Spider-man to the Avengers, they might connect Peter Parker to the Avengers."

She eyed him under her lashes, and he nodded his understanding. That…would be bad for his secret identity thing. Clint, strolling in with his arms behind his head, just offering Peter a wry quirk of his lips. He wasn't one for following regulations—but even he didn't have anything to back Peter up on in this situation.

He couldn't look for any help from Uncle Bruce either; he'd stumbled off to pass out already, and it was clear that the only reason Tony hadn't gone after him to make sure he passed out in bed and not a hallway was the scolding session they were having.

Rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, Peter said, "Well…JARVIS sounded worried and you couldn't really expect me to just stay behind if he of all people sounds concerned, right?"

By the unimpressed look Tony was giving him, Peter figured his excuse was flimsier than he had even thought before.

He looked away.

But he was saved from having to make any awkward apologies or any responses of the sort from an unlikely source, namely a Norse God quite suddenly teleporting right into the midst of their very unfun pow-wow. Peter hadn't realized he could ever be quite so happy to see Loki.

Then Tony arched an eyebrow at Loki that said they'd be exchanging words later, most likely about Peter's escapades, and he took that overly-hasty thought back. This was really only prolonging his doom.

He hadn't asked for substitute parents, he really hadn't—

But looking at the faces of the Avengers around him, all of whom were simply honestly concerned (and Loki, who was dishonestly unconcerned, seriously, Peter was so onto him), Peter really couldn't find it in him to resent it or even regret it.

But he was interrupted in his admittedly sappy thoughts by Clint, who was frowning slightly. "Hey, kid, where'd your fancy fedora run off to?"

Peter blinked. And again. He'd brought it to prove that Spider-man could, in fact, wear a fedora, but now that he thought about it, that was probably one of his worse decisions.

And he had no idea where it had gone.

He just groaned. "What am I going to tell Gwen?"

Tony's lips quirked up at that and Peter felt the urge to groan again.

When Bruce woke up after hulking out, he always felt a little woozy. That was true this time as well, though he was relieved to find he woke up in his room in the tower.

He was always a little relieved at the traces of his control, even if he knew that he was much better at it now.

He sat up—and off the top of his head tumbled a rather rumpled and battered, if fashionable fedora.

…At a certain point, Bruce had stopped questioning odd things that happened after he woke up from the other guy's rampant run.

He just put the hat back on his head, dirty and ripped as it was, and wondered if the Hulk liked fedoras.