Title- Red, White and Blue
Rating- K
Summary- The Avengers throw a Fourth of July party as a surprise for Steve and invite a few of their superhero friends. What could possibly go wrong? (Except for the cake, decorations, and the fact that Cap already knows about the party?)
A/N- I found wifi! And writer's block. In honor of the 4th, I'm writing this, while the third chapter of Sting is in progress. Heheh, this is supposed to be a comedy of errors, obviously.
Red
"So...do you know how to do it?" Janet looked skeptically at the cookbook and ingredients set out on the table in front of her. Carol shrugged. "I didn't do much cooking...well, ever."
"Yeah, me neither. Well, I suppose we'd best start now." she fiddled with the page. Carol read aloud. "Hm. Two eggs, one and a half cups of milk, two cups of all purpose flour, half a cup of sugar, flavoring...this looks easy enough. I'll get the eggs."
Janet picked up a whisk from the drawer and laid it on the table. "I'll get the flavoring. What kind?"
Carol stopped picking up broken eggshells off the floor long enough to read out, "Uh...vanilla."
Janet frowned as she rummaged through the shelves. "I can't find it. We probably don't have any. I'll use cherry extract instead. It's all flavoring, isn't it?"
"I guess." Carol crossed the kitchen to get the flour and poured it into the bowl as well. "Wait...I think this is whole wheat flour. The recipe said all-purpose. Is that bad?" Jan thought for a moment, then shook her head. "I'm... sure it's fine. Flour's flour."
"Okay, well, we told JARVIS not to help us out here, so I guess we're done." Carol was saying, looking at the mess in the cake pan. She stuck her finger in, then gagged. "I think it will taste better cooked."
"Hmph. It says we were supposed to preheat the oven to three hundred seventy-five degrees." Wasp said. "Do you think it matters now?"
"No." Carol said, sliding the pan in and typing in the cook time.
-TEN MINUTES LATER-
Janet and Carol were just trying to fan away the small (small!) tufts of smoke around the oven long enough to get the cake out when a voice called from the doorway.
"Is that the burning smell? I thought it was just Johnny." Jan immediately turned around and greeted her, while Carol tried to recognize the woman in front of her. "Susan...Storm? The Invisible Woman?"
Sue nodded. "It's Carol, right? Pleased to meet—" she cut herself off as Jan set the cake on the cutting board. "What is that? It looks like someone microwaved one of Reed's experiments and covered it in jelly."
"Um...it's a cake. For the party. I didn't think the Fantastic Four would come so early though. Tony, Pepper and Clint probably haven't even started setting up yet.." Jan cocked her head as if trying to see if the cake looked edible from another angle.
"Is it supposed to be red?"
White
"So where does this go again?" Clint held up a streamer. Pepper sighed, handing him a piece of tape like he was in kindergarten and pointing one finger at the wall of the meeting room, where several other streamers already fluttered from the air conditioning.
Tony seemed to be having a battle with a plastic tablecloth, to which Pepper pushed him out of the way and put it on herself. "Can't you guys do anything around here?"
"Yes." the streamer Clint had just put up fell to the floor. "No."
"Well, try, because I need to go to the grocery store for ten minutes." Pepper was already picking up her clipboard and purse. Tony frowned. "Why?"
"Because, since somebody–" she looked meaningfully at Tony, "–left the matter of the cake to Carol and Jan, I am picking up a cake from the grocery store." Clint sniggered from behind his hand.
"By the way," Pepper called over her shoulder, "Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm, and Reed Richards are here. I sent them to you guys to help with the decorating."
"Oh?" Tony raised his eyebrows. "Where's Sue?"
"Elsewhere." the door slammed on her way out, knocking more decorations off the walls. Clint shrugged and picked up the streamer.
"Hello?"
Johnny, Tony, Ben, Clint, and Reed froze at the sound of Captain America's voice at the doors. "Why is this locked?"
Trading glances for a moment, Tony pointed at the doors. About three seconds laterClint and Johnny were pushed out and left to cover for the others.
"Uh, hi, Cap." Clint started. Steve frowned, glancing at Johnny. "The Human Torch? What are you doing here? Honestly, by the way everyone's acting you'd think we're throwing a party."
This could have ended the conversation then if Johnny hadn't opened his mouth and blurted, "What party? Not for you. I mean, we wouldn't have a surprise party for you, even if it's the Fourth of July—"
"You're having a party for me?" Clint face-palmed, kicking Johnny in the leg at the same time. Meanwhile, Johnny realized his mistake. "Ow! Aw, crap. You're not supposed to know about it! Compared with everything else this is gonna be a disaster!"
Cap glanced at Clint. "What's really a surprise is that you guys managed to keep this a secret for so long."
Clint's face turned white.
Blue
When he opened the door a few hours later, Steve expected to find just what Johnny had said: a disaster; a chaotic mess. He really shouldn't expect more from his team, he thought, smiling inwardly.
It was actually very surprising when he opened the door.
No one shouted, 'Surprise!' when he walked in, but everyone clapped except for Hulk (mostly because his clapping would probably send people flying). He knew, or at least heard of, most of the people there: The Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Black Widow, Mockingbird, Nick Fury (shocker) and the Hulk's cousin, and there was some store-bought food, beer (per Clint's request), and a store-bought cake on the table.
And it was nice.
"Who did all this?" he asked Clint, who merely shrugged.
"The whole thing was Stark and Jan's idea. Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman helped us out. Natasha took care of inviting everyone." he nodded. If the Black Widow said to come to a party, you probably would.
His favorite part, however, was at the end, when Clint pulled out some fireworks that may or may not have been illegal, earning him a appreciative smirk from Bobbi and a raised eyebrow from Fury, who didn't say a word when the dark blue sky lit up with color.
END.