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The Stark-Rogers family have a solid tradition for birthdays. It was a simple act, not flamboyant like Tony but more homey and familial like Steve, who had first started practicing it on their first birthday with Peter which continued on and introduced to Tadashi and Hiro when they joined the family. Now, the boys didn’t know any way else to celebrate a birthday and for that, Steve was proud that he’d leave some part of him into his children.
As the years passed with the boys turning into teens and the dads getting busier with more villains showing up to disrupt the lives of innocents, Tadashi had taken the torch of spearheading the tradition and reminding everyone of it. Steve didn’t mind and was happy to have a son who valued their simple practices that made them a family even though Tony would always try to make it grand and merrier but even Tony knew the deep meaning behind it, felt it and loved it. When Peter donned on the mask, he’d become the messenger for the tradition and the older brothers pretty much took their parents’ roles of preparing the tradition.
Hiro just joined in on the tradition without much help, his brothers liked to be busy with things like that and while Hiro appreciated the tradition, he wasn’t always up for dealing with mess (and the blame for that could be placed on Tadashi and Tony who’d spoilt him too much).
Hiro’s birthday was closing in but Tony and Steve had been called out to defend the people which forced Spiderman to double his efforts in protecting the city (he usually forgot that there were a number of many other superheroes watching over New York) and Tadashi was being filleted and skewered by the demands of college while the birthday celebrant himself was busy sneaking around to take part in bot fighting tournaments.
The day proceeded on like any other day when Iron Man and Captain America were out. Peter was swinging around the city, Hiro just arriving home before Tadashi came from the college, tired and half-way to being a teen zombie.
“Man, Tadashi, you look…dead,” even Hiro had to cringe at the analogy because tonight, his brother did look worse and had come later than normal.
Tadashi gave out a dry laugh, rubbing a hand on his brother’s head, “and you look like you won a lot tonight, huh?”
The younger brother looked away before grinning innocently, “I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
“Don’t lie to me, little brother,” Tadashi said warningly but with less heat than the usual. Then he let out a yawn which was followed by a groan, “you’re lucky I don’t have the energy to give you a lecture tonight.”
Hiro frowned as his brother walked past him and went inside his room. He didn’t like it when Tadashi lectured him but then he didn’t like it either when Tadashi wouldn’t give him a lecture after he’d done something wrong (in his older brother’s eyes). With a small groan of his own and roughly scratching his head, Hiro shoved his hands into his hoodie pockets and went into his room, cursing his brother. He didn’t feel lucky at all.
Tadashi was in the bathroom, taking a cold shower to clear his mind and send him sleeping the moment he’d hit the bed (as if he wasn’t just barely standing then). He was about to drift to sleep when JARVIS’ voice broke through the sleepy haze.
“Sir, there is a phone call for you from Master Peter.”
“Pete? Put him through,” Tadashi answered their butler and as soon as he heard the tone of the call being patched through and played on JARVIS’ speakers, he worriedly asked, “are you all right, Pete?”
“Yeah, it’s been a quiet night but Torch is here to do his own patrols for once so I’m heading home. You haven’t started yet, have you?”
“Started what?”
“What do you—” Peter cut himself and cursed, “Tadashi, for the love of—please tell me you didn’t forget.”
“Forget what?”
“—great. Just great. What the heck are we going to do about the cake, there’s nothing open anymore—”
Realization, cold and horrific, settled on the pit of his stomach and he cursed his insensitivity.
“—and you can’t bake a cake in thirty minutes. Tadashi, what the heck do we do?!”
“Oh my god.”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Oh my god.”
“Dude—”
Peter stopped himself, landing on a building’s roof as he tried to listen to the sounds coming from the other line. It was echoed so he wasn’t really sure but it sounded so much like—
“Jeez Louise—are you crying, man?!”
“I forgot Hiro’s birthday!”
“Shit—stop crying!”
“What have I done?!”
Peter groaned, there was no use talking to Tadashi about this. His brother was too far gone in his self-assumed betrayal of their youngest. Shooting out a web to the next building, Peter jumped off with a curse under his breath and swung, hoping to get home before Tadashi did something stupid like cry like a broken hearted maiden in the showers.
The first thing Peter did when he got home was to pull off his mask and follow the sounds of sobs and giggles to the kitchen where he found Hiro trying not to laugh but failing terribly with the huge grin he was wearing. On one of the chairs sat Tadashi with just a towel wrapped around his waist and tears streaming down his puffy red eyes and cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Hiro!”
“It’s—snnrk! Fine, nii-san!”
“I am unworthy!”
Peter shook his head—of course—and his eyes met Hiro’s. The little devil was having fun at his brother’s distress until Tadashi pulled him onto his lap and wrapped his arms around his little brother. It was then that Hiro started to panic and scramble away but Tadashi had a strong hold on him and smothered his younger brother in his embrace.
“I promise to get you a cake first thing!”
“It’s—” a futile struggle and deep gasp for air, “—fine! You don’t have to!”
It was a useless attempt and Hiro knew it. Tadashi was a lost cause and the youngest of the three sent Peter a desperate, pleading look the all but screamed help me. But for all the distress his youngest brother was going through, Peter could only grin. It’d been too long since they felt like brothers with how both he and Tadashi were busy with their own lives and Hiro distancing himself from them.
Admittedly, Peter thought it finally felt like coming home.
“Oh, we have to, squirt,” Peter joined in teasingly, coming up to his brother to rub Hiro’s head with rough affection.
“What’s a birthday without a cake? I’ll get you one, with a big spider on it.”
“Spider freak!”
Peter laughed at the poor attempt of insult, knowing Hiro didn’t really mean it. The oldest brother stepped back, his phone out and Hiro’s eyes widened as he understood what his brother was about to do.
“Don’t do you freaking—”
Click!
“Be prepared to be a celebrity, little brother, this is going viral.”
After consuming the most cakes they had in the last couple of years, Peter’s little prank the previous night had been left forgotten as the brothers laid around the living room floor with icing on their faces and feeling a little bit too full and sticky at the same time. They still had another large cake waiting in the kitchen for when their dads would arrive, who were flying in from wherever they were at the moment.
“I didn’t even realize I liked cake that much,” Hiro commented with a light chuckle and turned to his side to pick at the crumbs on the nearest cake box.
“Dude, that one cake shop where I bought the Barbie cake! I swear!” Peter laughed, face red at the memory.
“Tonight’s headlines: Even Spiderman loves Barbie!”
The brothers laughed, rolling on the floor without a care until Tadashi found his phone lighting up. As his brothers continued to joke around beside him, he grabbed his phone and checked the notification—
GoGo Tomago, Gwen Stacy, That Johnny Is On Fire and 425 other people liked a photo you were tagged in: “Tadashi used constrict!”
“What the he— Peter you freaking idiot! ”