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Tony yawned as he entered Stark Tower late at night, for once not via the landing pad on his penthouse floor but through the main entrance from the street. Like a normal human being. Normal. Huh. When had that happened? Man, Pepper would be proud of him. Tony smirked to himself and then thought back to the business trip he was just coming back from. He loved the south of the USA, but going there for business trips? Meh. That just killed all the fun in the traveling. Especially if said business trip was about convincing the shareholders that, yes, there had been a portal opening right above Stark Tower because there had been a freaking alien invasion in New York just three weeks ago, and no, Stark Industries had certainly not been involved in any of that craziness. Jeez.
“Welcome home, Sir,” Jarvis’ British accent cut through his thoughts and made him smile. “Thanks, J. How’s everyone doing? Please don’t tell me they’ve disassembled my precious tower in my absence.”
Jarvis seemed to hesitate. “I can assure you that no one has caused any more damage than you have to your buildings in the past,” the AI said eventually.
Oh God. So they had disassembled part of the tower. Possibly even the entirety of said tower. Well, except the entrance hall, obviously. Because as tired as Tony was from his trip, if the building he’d just entered had been turned to ashes and debris, he’d have noticed. Probably. Well, possibly.
Anyway. Tony shook his head to rid himself of his wildly circling thoughts as he entered the elevator. There was an AI to interrogate, after all. “How bad is it, J?” he asked in defeat, closing his eyes and slumping against the metal wall.
“There… seems to be a… party going on which all of the tower’s inhabitants are attending,” Jarvis replied. Tony frowned. “Wait. What? A… a party?!”
“Indeed, Sir, I am sorry. I attempted to convince them that it might not be the best idea to-“
“Hold on, hold on, Jarvis. Are you telling me that my robots. Are throwing. A freaking party. In the workshop?!”
“No, Sir, the party is located in the penthouse, but you seem to have misunderstood-”
“No. Fucking. Way,” Tony interrupted, angry now. His goddamn robots were throwing a party in his penthouse. How was this even his life? “Why the hell are they in my penthouse?” he groused. “How did they even get out of the workshop? And, most importantly, why for fuck’s sake didn’t you stop them?!”
The elevator slid to a halt, but the doors didn’t open. Tony could already hear the sound of dance music so loud that said doors vibrated with the volume of the bass.
“Sir-”
“You know what? I don’t even want to hear it,” Tony growled. “Open the damn doors so I can put an end to this madness.”
“But Sir, I insist that there seems to be a misunderstanding-“
“Open the fucking doors, Jarvis!”
Finally, the AI fell silent, and a moment later, the elevator opened.
The music was a hundred times louder now that the protective metal of the elevator wasn’t there anymore. Nicki Minaj’s “Starships” blared from the speakers (oh God, where had his robots gotten this kind of a terrible taste of music? Certainly not from him) as Tony strode into the room –
and froze.
And stared.
Blinked.
And stared some more.
He opened his mouth to ask Jarvis what the hell was going on, but for some reason, his voice didn’t cooperate all of a sudden.
He closed his mouth again.
“Heyyyyyy, look who’s finally here!” Clint waved a hand at him, grinning like someone who’d had decidedly too many shots as he nodded his head in time to the beat of the music. Bruce was slouching on the couch, legs stretched out in front of him. He held a bottle of beer in his hand, but the slightly dazed grin on his face suggested that he, too, had already had much more than the contents of that bottle. Well, at least he didn’t seem to be an angry drunk. Thank God for small mercies. Speaking of gods, Thor was apparently trying to dance to Nicki Minaj – which looked right out ridiculous. Tony winced as he smashed his empty glass of something onto the floor and bellowed, “Another!” before catching the bottle Natasha threw his way, her aim slightly off. She was standing behind Tony’s bar, from the looks of it systematically going through his stash of expensive alcohol. Meanwhile, Steve seemed to be the only one still sober as he swept away the shards of what had to be numerous bottles and glasses with a broom.
Tony could still only stare at his five new teammates with whom he’d saved New York and probably the entire world three and a half weeks ago. (Not that he was bragging to himself about that. Hell no. That would be just pathetic.) It took him a whole few seconds of taking in the scene in front of him before he realized that Jarvis had, in fact, not been talking about his robots. Huh. Somehow, he wasn’t sure if he felt relieved about that or not.
What the hell were the Avengers even doing in his tower? Sure, he had offered them a place to stay after the Chitauri incident, but A) he hadn’t expected them to take him up on that offer so soon (the repairs of the building weren’t even entirely done yet), and B) what he’d been expecting even less was them just showing up and throwing a damn party in his tower. In his absence. Without his permission.
“Man of Iron!” Thor bellowed over the music and came over with a grin on his face, having been alerted to Tony’s presence by Clint’s exclamation. “Come and join us in our celebration!” He clapped Tony on the back jovially, the unearthly (and drunk) force of it making him stumble sideways a few steps before he lost his balance entirely and fell onto his backside. Wow. Graceful, Tony, really graceful.
“What the hell is even going on here?” Ah, finally. His voice had found its way back into his throat.
Before Thor could give him an answer (or apologize, for that matter), Steve was pulling Tony up to his feet again, shooting Thor a glare before turning back to him. His face was flushed with embarrassment. “I’m so sorry about this, Tony, I tried to talk them out of it, but they wouldn’t budge. I told them we couldn’t just enter your tower without your permission, much less your living floor. I mean, we knew from Ms. Potts that you were gonna be back late at night today, but I tried to argue that you’d probably be tired after your business trip,” Steve rambled on, sounding slightly panicked in his rush to explain. Tony would have found his frantic demeanor right out hilarious in any other situation, but right now he was barely noticing it. “Hold on, hold on,” he cut in, “slow down. Maybe I phrased that wrong. What I want to know is why for heaven’s sake you guys are throwing a party in my house. And, most importantly, not inviting me to said party.” Tony raised an expectant eyebrow as he looked up at Steve, arms akimbo. (Oh God, he had to look like Pepper when she lectured him about things like responsibility and normal behavior. Ugh. Tony let his arms fall to his sides again.)
If he had hoped for Steve to calm down and collect himself in order to give him a comprehensible answer – well, this was certainly not what he had achieved. Not at all.
Steve’s eyes were huge as he frantically shook his head. “Tony, no! That’s not at all what’s going on here! Please don’t think we’d throw a party to which all team members were invited except you! We’d never do that!”
Tony had to bite the inside of his cheek to suppress the urge to laugh at Steve’s distress. God, he hoped Jarvis was recording this. The footage would make for excellent blackmailing material. (You never know what situations may arise to call for such measures, after all.) Steve of all people stumbling over his words in a frantic not to hurt Tony’s feelings – oh, the irony.
In the meantime, the other Avengers had joined them, and someone had even turned down the music to make coherent verbal communication possible. Perfect. Tony patted Steve’s arm with a sweet smile. “No worries, Cap, you’re not the first to do so. No hard feelings.” He winked at him, internally crying with laughter as Steve’s expression grew pained. Oh boy, he was enjoying this. “Now, how ‘bout you tell me why you chose Stark Tower of all places to get down if you didn’t want me to participate?” he continued, voice lighthearted and friendly.
Natasha made a choked little noise, and when Tony glanced over to her, he could see that she was barely even hiding her grin. Well, of course she’d notice the way he was messing with their team captain, even drunk as she was.
Meanwhile, Steve’s face was practically begging to be filmed for later amusement. “Please believe me, Tony! We would really never exclude you! It’s just, we knew you’d be coming back today, and this was meant to be a surprise…”
Now, Tony was genuinely confused. “A… surprise? For me? Why? I mean, not that I’m opposed to partying just for the sake of partying, hell no. That’d just ruin my reputation, wouldn’t it? No, seriously, this is-”
“You have no idea what date it is, do you?”
Tony fell silent and closed his mouth as he turned to meet the eyes of that amused voice’s owner. Bruce had a lopsided smile on his face which made him look slightly out of it. The bottle of beer still held loosely in his hand didn’t help the impression.
“Um. No?” Tony frowned. “Jarvis?”
“It’s the 28th of May, 2012, Sir, currently 11.59 p.m.” Was it just him or did even his AI sound amused? Before he could finish that thought, though, it clicked in Tony’s brain. “Oh.” (Wow, the eloquence. Some genius he was.) “It’s… gonna be my birthday tomorrow?”
“And tomorrow’s barely a minute from now,” Steve confirmed, smiling at him now. What a shame. That distressed look of embarrassment had looked so much better on him.
Tony blinked. “You guys… planned a surprise party for my birthday?”
“Yep! You only get 50 once in a lifetime, right?” Clint gave him a shit-eating grin and clapped a hand on his shoulder.
Tony sputtered in disbelief, affronted. “Excuse you, I’m 41! And I still look much hotter than you, Birdbrain!”
Clint opened his mouth and was about to retort when Steve’s voice piped up, “42.” At the questioning looks coming his way, he pointed at the digital time display of the stereo which was now showing 00.00 a.m. “You’re 42.”
Tony stared at the screen for a few seconds, then back at his team. Steve, still standing in front of him, was the first to act by grabbing him in a hug and tightly pulling him to his chest. “Happy birthday, Tony.”
In his surprise, it took Tony a few seconds to react, but then he hesitantly put his own arms around Steve and awkwardly returned the embrace. “Um. Thanks, I guess?” He felt Steve’s chest vibrate with silent laughter against him as his teammate tightened the embrace for a short moment before pulling back, beaming.
And as Tony glanced at the other faces surrounding him, he saw exact images of that beam in each and every one of them. Man, that expression had to be contagious. Tony felt his own face split into a grin. This was going to be one of his better birthday parties, he decided.