The saying goes this way: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But it has come to the Avengers attention that the said phrase needs to be altered immediately. Breakfast is the most destructive meal of the day, well at least in the Avengers Tower. Breakfast is the place where there is a Russian assassin who hasn't had her green tea yet; it's where Tony stumbles in after working in his life throughout the night, where a confused Thor is present after JARVIS's umpteenth attempt to wake him up. Clint who is hungry, Cap trying to catch the news on the tablet and Bruce just trying to stay calm. So excuse them if they seem a little on edge, it just a little over 10 am. A bit early for breakfast considering it is their day off.
Breakfast appears down on their plate, courtesy dummy and soon vanishes off their plates; courtesy an angry, confused and not up to it group of superheroes. Pancakes, all they need is pancakes (truckload of it) and some green tea for the red haired assassin before she pulls out her bazooka and then all will be fine. Thank god and bless dummy's motherboard for their breakfast because now you have yourself more sane and functioning group of people.
"I say Bruce, it's Sunday and a rare day off for all of us, so why don't we head to the lab? What do you say?"
"Umm I don't see any harm in it but, you don't touch any chemicals."
"Cross my arc reactor and hope dummy dies." Tony rolls his eyes and promises on their dear robot.
"Wait since we all have the day out, maybe we should hang out together" Steve attempts to say only to be stopped by a grumpy Natasha kicking him under the table"
"I will murder you!" She mouths across the table. Clint catches the change in the air and keeps Thor in conversation because no one wants to deal with an angry demi god at this ungodly hour of 10am.
"That sounds like a good idea and thank you Spidey for shutting him off but Bruce and I have stuff to invent." Tony chirps with fake enthusiasm before getting up from the table, Bruce close in pursuit. He takes one step-one step only before a knife crosses his way missing him by a fraction.
"Don't call me that!"
"What even after tea you manage to be that grumpy?" and another knife slices the air.
"Is this some kind of traditions to throw things across the table?" Thor asks and there was only so much Clint could do not to get him involved in the conversation between two overgrown children: Tony and Natasha. He smacked his head against the table because now Thor was involved and gods please help them.
"No Thor, it's-"Bruce tried to explain but really it was just too late. A spoonful of whip cream had already travelled across the table, towards the unassuming captain and splat, Right on the nose.
And it was Tony's fault for laughing at the wrong moment causing Steve to think that the whip cream was launched at him by Tony. He angrily wiped the white foam from his little red nose and grabbed another one spoon. This was going to be a disaster, Clint could smell it. The ever patient leader of Avengers threw the cream covered spoon towards Tony and it was a bull's eye.
"Now you have done it!" Tony yelled making a grab for the whip cream spray and doing the needful all over Cap. "Do you know, how long it takes me do to my hair? 2 hours!"
Shielding himself with a plate, Steve blindly grabbed the closest thing to him; the maple syrup bottle and squirted. But alas Tony had long since moved from in front of him and the sticky liquid landed right on Natasha. Gulp. There was murder in her eyes and you better run now. Clint already read her like an open book and the words left his mouth before he could even process them. "Food Fight! All men for themselves." Hell broke loose.
Food flew everywhere and unfortunately most of it landed on the unprepared doctor. Clint and Thor took cover behind the over turned table, Tony and Cap were more successful in finding a more appropriate cover. The said people were cowering behind the kitchen counter. The remaining were Natasha and Bruce scratch that it was only Natasha because there came a panicked Bruce behind the table, joining Clint and Thor.
"Doc, are you alright? You look a little shaken."
"She is out there. It's-its evil." Bruce said quivering. He curled himself into a fetal position and chanted the word evil over and over again.
"Snap out of this daze, great doctor. Who is evil that wrecks such mortal havoc on you?" Thor tried but failing to understand the seriousness of the situation. Natasha was out there.
"What is she exactly planning doc?" Clint shivered now and then it hit him-hit him hard-Natasha hadn't finished her tea. And then the place was eerily quiet, Banner's 'evil' chant soon caught the alert ears of Cap and Tony and it doesn't take a genius to figure out what the evil is.
"Brace yourself" Steve whispers to the billionaire.
"Shh, did you hear that? We are trapped. Trapped I tell you." Tony yelled causing Steve to clasp his hand over the hysteric Tony.
"Calm down and brace yourself. It's too late for us. We cannot be saved now." And right on cue, jumped the angry assassin in front of them. The scream that left their mouths was highly undignified and slightly girlish. The scream was however cut short and across the room, behind certain over turned table, quiet prayers could be heard.
"We are next, are we not?" Thor tried whispering and accepting their doomed fate. Clint and Bruce nodded in affirmation
And then there was another wave of scream as Natasha suddenly jumped over the trio. She fired her sticky concoction all over them and victoriously walked towards the center of the room.
"You can all come out now. I won the battle and it's save, you little babies." She yelled over her shoulder.
Five timid and visibly shaking men came out of their respective hiding post covered in spaghetti and rotten eggs. Five seconds later when all forms of danger had been cleared, Tony found his voice back.
"How in the world did you find the time to soak spaghetti in rotten eggs?"
"Really, you are concerned about that? Just think about how many showers it is going to take us to get this stink off." The cap countered, causing Natasha to smirk.
"Well, that was a tradition I prohibit to do again." Thor said, taking in the still shaking form of the doctor.
"You have scarred him for life!" Tony yelled dramatically falling on his knees.
"Can we stop right there and pay attention to our priorities here? We need to shower, ASAP?"
Breakfast time is the most destructive meal in the Avengers Tower.
Three hours later, the men of the tower had finally finished washing the sticky concoctions off of their bodies and to say the least it wasn't a pleasant experience. Eggs plus water topped with spaghetti do no mix well and soap could only work to an extent so excuse them if they took nearly three hours.
Tony was washing the last strand of the remaining pasta from his body when he ran his hand through his hair. His hair was wrecked, ruined and oh the horror. Dead, Natasha Romanoff is dead. "I swear on all my Audi's I will avenge my hair. Natasha Romanoff you better watch out." He silently promised himself. But then his stomach grumbled again, for it was nearly dinner time when he finally emerged from the piping hot shower. He pushed all thoughts of feeding his stomach aside and trudged to his lab, he had revenge to plan.
"Oh my holy smoke, what happened to the kitchen?" A distant voice of an angry Pepper could be heard from the floors above. "TONY! No, not only Tony, All you AVENGERS are in deep trouble."
"JARVIS, if Pepper asks for me then I am not here. In fact tell her that Natasha was jealous of my awesomeness and murdered me. K, buddy?"
"As you say Sir." His trusty robotic voice confirmed.
The following day was less eventful caused by the fact that it was Pepper's day off and no one, not even Natasha Romanoff wanted to mess with Pepper on her day off and maybe credited that Tony hadn't shown up for breakfast. So yes, breakfast was less destructive today. It was destructive, but it wasn't registered on the Richter scale. Shit Pepper did scare the hell out of them all. She should be worthy of an Avenger title.
"JARVIS, I know Tony is in his lab. Did he have his coffee?"
"Yes ma'am, dummy send him four cups of them."
"What is Tony up to anyway?" Captain asked.
"Inventing a new formula to get all that egg yolk out of your hair, probably." Clint snickered causing the others to give a chuckle of amusement.
"Should we be worried? He didn't show up for dinner too." Banner said cutting aside all the humor.
"Nah, he gets like that sometimes. He finds a new thing he thinks he should be inventing then he won't leave his lab until he is done. Pepper said nonchalantly, it was an expected answer anyway.
"Maybe I should go check up on him after Breakfast." Banner announced. They were science buddies and if Tony's locked himself in the lab then he is going to discover some ground breaking theories and he wouldn't like to miss it.
So breakfast went by successfully and they parted ways. Banner heading towards the lab, Pepper and Natasha off to do their girl stuff leaving Clint, Cap and Thor in each-others company.
"Hey buddy, what you up to?" Bruce announced once he stepped into the lab. Tony clearly no expecting company dropped the almost ready contraption from his hand and giving out an undignified shriek.
"I didn't do anything!" he yelled raising his hands in surrender. Once he had administered Bruce's face in his mind, he significantly calmed down. "God, Banner it's rude to sneak up on people like that. A heart attack you almost gave me." He chided.
"Uh, I don't think that's grammatically correct and how many cups of coffee did you have again?"
"Twenty and how do you shrink carcinogenic cells?" The billionaire countered in the very same tone Banner had inflicted on him.
They don't know how but the level of understanding between the two of them is so high it's practically absurd. Two minds that have the same level of genius insanity, insomnia, buttercups and marshmallows. They should be brothers by now.
"Depends on what type of cancer it is. You can totally eradicate the cancer cells by chemo. Maybe shrink them by radio waves and the lot. Why what do you have in mind?" Banner asked pushing his specs higher on his bridge.
"No, what if it isn't a cancer cell. Like how can you shrink a healthy cell?"
"And why would you need that?"
"Come on Bruce you are killing my style here. No questions please."
The inner voice in the doctor's head screamed 'Trouble. Mayday, mayday, Abort' but the voice was weak and eventually died down. "Okay but I need 50% of the credit for any new discoveries."
"Now you are talking." Tony smirked and then the clever hands of the mechanic and doctor went to work.
"Don't you think it's hard being the only girls in this Tower? I mean sometimes it drives me absolutely crazy" Pepper asked Natasha as they did their nails.
"Sometimes? I think one day we will be in an asylum because of them."
"Well yes. But then they can cook better and we can get them to do all the house work when they have the day off so I guess it's a balanced situation."
"Yup and you can even take out off your daily anger on them. Poor guys they all yet blame it on PMS." Natasha smiled and continued to paint her toes.
"Talking about the guys, isn't it a bit too quiet?" Pepper noticed out of the blue. "It's been an hour since Tony's last explosion. Something fishy is up."
"Clint didn't bother me once either. Oh something is definitely up. Grab your gun." Natasha said jumping off Pepper's bed.
"What? Grab my gun? I don't think it's that dangerous, just fishy."
To think Pepper didn't know how to use a gun would be utter bullshit. Instead to getting to know one another coffee, Natasha and Pepper bonded over bullets and booze. The first thing Natasha taught Pepper to do was fire a gun and heck she even gifted her one of the limited edition Glocks. Pepper as a return gift offers Natasha the girl time she desperately needs.
"Pepper they haven't interrupted us once in the past four hours except Banner's and Tony's occasional explosion tremors, which too stopped an hour ago."
Pepper still looked unconvinced until Natasha gave her one of those looks. "You are right. Let's go." Pepper agreed pulling out her gun from the side table.
Meanwhile in the quiet lab of the tower two mad scientists called Tony and Bruce awkwardly stared at their baby. She was a picture of perfection with her shining metal and poise. The said scientist screamed Eureka like halleluiah of the church's choir and it was just so beautiful.
Wiping the tears f proudness from his red eyes, Tony looked over at Banner. "What should we call her?"
Still fazed by the absolute beauty of their creation, Banner took a while to process Tony's thought. I think Shrinky. Yeah that would be right."
"Beautiful, I like it. Shrinky-the shrink machine." And for the first time Tony was not a sarcastic bastard.
"Sir, Miss Potts and Romanoff are on their way down here." JARVIS announced breaking them out of their reverie.
"Revenge is mine, Muahahaha!" Tony attempted the evil laughter and catching Banner by surprise.
"What Revenger Tony? What are you talking abo-"But he was ungracefully shut off and roughly pushed out of the other entrance to the lab.
"Okay Brucey, I know we are science bros, but this is personal. I have my looks to avenge." Tony yelled after locking Banner out of the lab.
"Tony Stark, you open this door right now." He yelled but all he got in return was the blinds being pulled down.
Tony is everything alright?" Pepper asked entering the lab with Romanoff behind just as soon as he had pulled the blinds down.
"Yes honey-everything is alright." He spoke with extra care. 'Speaking of which, Romanoff I have a surprise for you."
Natasha, who was spying on Shrinky, turned around to face Tony and raised an eyebrow. "You have a surprise for me? How come?"
Tony faked hurt and walked over to the red haired assassin, gently pushing her in front of Shrinky.
"Tony what are you up to?" Pepper asked reading his face and catching that mischievous glint in his eyes.
"Tony I swear if I am covered in flour after this, I will hang you outside this very Tower from the 79th floor."
Hush, hush, nothing of that sort, just stand right here for a minute."
Not having the energy to actually participate in a willing argument with him, Natasha complied. "Okay, but the second I sense fishy, you are dead."
Tony ran behind Shrinky and charged her up. "Tony what the heck is that?" Pepper exclaimed
"Okay, I am out of here." Natasha freaked upon watching Shrinky rev in to life. She began to take a step but found her herself glued to the spot. She was actually glued to the spot. "Tony you are so dead, after all this gets over."
"It's just some good old fashioned revenge." Tony said, pushing the final button on Shrinky.
"Initiating Shrink in Five seconds." Said the automated voice of the machine.
But five seconds is all it takes to break hell, because it was exactly in those five seconds that Steve, Clint, Thor and a panting Banner stumbled into the lab.
"Nooo!" Clint screamed giving a dramatic leap to shove his partner out the path of the shrink ray. But five seconds is not too much if you look at it in a way. Natasha too was caught in the head lights out of all his sudden action.
Bright light flashed across the room, blinding everyone. A small explosion and fading screams could be heard. Once the flash had dimmed down a little and their eyes adjusted, Tony could swear he saw murder in their eyes, Murder in their eyes towards him.
They whipped their heads towards where Natasha and Clint should have been standing to find the place completely empty.
"Tony where is Clint and Natasha?" Pepper asked with faked calmness.
"Guys, I think you should see this." Bruce yelled from across the lab. He had a magnifying glass in his hand and eyes pried to the ground. The group quickly huddled towards Banner and went down on their knees, stealing glances from the magnifying glass.
"Oh my god!" Pepper exclaimed.
"Tony, what did you do?" Cap yelled
God they were pissed, no they were beyond pissed. "It's not as bad as it looks."
"Tony, you shrunk the two most dangerous assassins in the world to an inch." Bruce yelled too, not talking his eyes off the pair of assassins, one of whom was jumping up and down, throwing a tantrum or in joy, he wasn't sure. While the other tried to calm down their partner. "You can practically see Natasha fuming from here."
"Well technically they are an inch and half and secondly I can fix it."
"We fix it what are you waiting for?"
"Yeah see, that's the problem, I didn't build a reversing machine yet?" Tony said nervously, scratching the back of his neck.
"WHAT?" They all exclaimed in together.
"You mean they are struck this size until you make a reversal machine?" Captain said, all of a sudden quiet tired of this drama.
"Yes. That's what I said." Tony said puffing out a breath.
"You do realize Natasha is going to kill you right?" Cap said.
Meanwhile in the big world, two shrunk assassin stood awkwardly trying to process the shit that happened. "I will kill Tony." Natasha promised.
AN: End of chapter one. I hope you guys like the story so far. Review and let me what you think.