Work Text:
Tadashi Stark-Rogers woke up with a bright grin on his face, full of optimistic energy he didn’t seem to share with any of his brothers. Feeling so alive first thing in the morning, he rushed out into the kitchen, beating everyone else and got onto making breakfast with some help from JARVIS.
For as long as he can remember, he’d been making breakfast whenever he had free time in the mornings. Back when he’d been younger, his Pops was there to assist him and take the lead but recently, he had free reign over the kitchen, making the Captain proud. He was meticulous when it came to health and kitchen duty wasn’t just good for him but the rest of the family, too.
Peter was the first to arrive, clothed in a used pair of pants and loose Captain America shirt. The older brother was rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he settled on one of the chairs and rested his chin on the table, watching his younger brother work his magic with humming.
“How on earth do you-do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“That humming—in the morning!”
“It’s just a thing I do.”
“God, how are you smiling?”
Peter groaned, lightly hitting his head on the surface. If anyone asked him, he’d describe Tadashi as strange but that didn’t mean they didn’t get along. Quite surprisingly, especially since Tadashi and Hiro had appeared out of the blue all of a sudden, Peter never strongly felt threatened by their presence. Sure, there were some fights and arguments but he and Tadashi were real buds—but who the hell hummed at seven am?!
“You just need to get laid, bro,” Tadashi joked as he placed some eggs in a plate.
Peter grunted and looked up, “please don’t tell me you actually brought someone home. The dads will kill you when they come back from Mexico.”
“Dude, I’m not suicidal, I didn’t—I’m just saying the only way to get you to smile in the morning is if you get screwed.”
Peter sat up and scrunched his face, “first of all that’s not true. I can be…relatively pleasant in the mornings without getting laid and secondly, I top. Let’s just make that clear.”
“According to the Daily Bugle gossip column yesterday, you don’t.”
“You and I both know JJ doesn’t know crap about personal space and honest news.”
“Fair enough. Last week, they were saying I was dating Gwen Stacey.”
Peter shrugged, “you went to prom with her.”
“Because you were busy being Spiderman—which is totally understandable. But the mags are calling me the girlfriend stealer. Prez Tipton even said I broke the bro code.”
“You?” Peter laughed, “break the bro code? Steal someone’s girlfriend? Yeah, like anyone would believe that—you don’t even lie.”
Tadashi’s face fell, “dude, it was one time and you guys never let me live it down.”
“It was hilarious,” Peter grinned as Tadashi slid over a plate of smiling breakfast over to him, “I’d totally marry you if you weren’t my brother, you make breakfast.”
“The way to a man’s heart is always his stomach,” Tadashi teased as he poured orange juice into two glasses. He handed one to Peter and looked up at the wall clock, “where’s Hiro?”
Peter shrugged, “he wasn’t out when I passed by his room, it was still locked from the inside—”
“Oh my god—”
“I’m sure it’s nothing, he’s just sleeping in. He was still up when I got home last night.”
“What was he doing up?”
“Beats me,” Peter shrugged then grinned teasingly, “I mean, he’s at that age. So, he might’ve been making it snow.”
Tadashi gave his brother an are you serious look, making Peter laugh. Rolling his eyes, Tadashi also shook his head in disagreement.
“I’m sure he wasn’t—but he could’ve done just that literally.”
“That’s what I meant,” Peter grinned.
“Hey, I’m the one that doesn’t tell lies.”
Peter shook his head, “that—that—you can’t pull that card.”
“I just did,” Tadashi grinned and as both brothers shared a good laugh, the younger of the two spotted the youngest in the hallway, already fully dressed for school.
“Hey, Hiro! Breakfast is ready!” Tadashi called.
“Yeah, buddy, get you butt over here! Or else I’d eat your share, too!” Peter added jokingly, “it’s your favourite, too!”
Instead of the usual excited reaction they got whenever they mentioned any of Hiro’s favourites, all they got was a deadpan expression from their younger brother.
“I’m not hungry, I’m heading to school.”
Shocked, they didn’t even react until they heard the elevator closing. Peter and Tadashi turned to each other with mirroring expressions.
“What the hell was that?” Tadashi groaned, his world slowly cracking.
“I-I think it’s-it’s uh, puberty,” Peter answered, unsure despite his great mind.
“But—he can’t—I mean, sure puberty but he can’t—just—just walk out like that!”
“Bro, you gotta let go,” Peter said gently, knowing how Tadashi had this greater complex for Hiro than he did and he saw this coming a mile away. Hiro was growing up and he wasn’t going to be so controlling or else Hiro might pull a Spiderman on him and there was no way he was going to send his baby brother out in just spandex (at the time of his own puberty, Peter really thought it was a good idea to swing around in spandex. His dads were right about the upgrade, though).
But Tadashi was different and if you asked Peter, he was sure Tadashi never even thought of Hiro growing up. To Tadashi, Hiro will forever and always be his baby brother that he needs to coddle and protect but Hiro was twelve, a junior in high school and a genius. By any means, he wasn’t much of a baby anymore.
“Bro, are you listening to me?”
“Peter! Oh my god!” Tadashi gasped as if he hadn’t been breathing the past few minutes and grabbed his brother by the shoulders and shook him, “I’m losing him!”
“Whoa, whoa, take a chill pill, man,” Peter said with a firm tone and placed his hands on Tadashi’s shoulders trying to calm him down before he started hyperventilating, “Tadashi! Listen to me! It’s part of growing up! Hiro’s not going to want to be treated like a baby for the rest of his life!”
“I am losing him, Peter!” Tadashi hissed desperately, “he is going to be a delinquent and die in the streets—”
“Just what do you do in your room at night?!”
“I am not going to lose my brother to puberty! I swear it on my blood!” Before Tadashi could grab the butter knife, Peter already slid the knife away with a flick of his hand.
“Bro, focus—it’s just puberty. The worst he can do is get in a suit and—”
All colour drained out from Tadashi’s face and Peter realized it was the worst thing to say, especially after their whole Spiderman argument a few months back.
“I need to find him!” Tadashi announced and broke free from his brother’s hold to run into his bedroom.
Peter shook his head as he felt a migraine coming, “great, how do I explain this to the dads?”
Tadashi came back into the kitchen and shoved the pre-packed sandwiches he’d made earlier into his backpack.
“For Hiro,” he explained absently as he tapped on his Stark phone a couple of times before letting out an ‘aha!’.
“Hiro’s still over at the corner! I can still catch up to him!”
Of course Tadashi had a GPS chip on Hiro, Peter shook his head as his brother ran out the house, unbelievable.
“So, dads, Hiro’s going through puberty and Tadashi is a crazy stalker—yeah, and they say the third time’s the charm. Oh god.”