20

After 50 games of very aggressive MarioKart, Harley and Peter were about ready to kill eachother.
Peter had blue shelled Harley and now Harley was somehow filled with enough rage that he had pinned Spider-Man in a fight.

"Harley get off of me! It doesn't matter: you were going to lose to me anyway!" Peter exclaimed, doing his best to still play and see the screen around Harley.

Unfortunately for Peter, Harley decided to silence him by covering his mouth with his foot (a hand would have of course been better but to win Harley needed both of them).

Peter proceeded to bite Harley's foot, get kicked in the face by Harley, then decided to lunge at Harley to distract him from first place.

There are no friends in MarioKart. Spider-Men become Spider-Warlords.

Harley dodged out the way and snarled at Peter. Their humanity was gone but their insanity was in. In the game Peter fired a red shell at Harley to distract him momentarily.

The second the Harley had to focus his attentions back onto the game Peter dived on top of him and hissed.

"GET OFF ME PARKER OR I'LL SKIN YOU!"
"OH YEAH‽ WELL I'LL POISON YOU!"
"HOW YOU GONNA POISON ME‽ WE DON'T EXACTLY HAVE ANYTHING NEARBY YOU COULD USE!"
"I WAS BITTEN BY A RADIOACTIVE SPIDER! MAYBE IT WAS A VENEMOUS ONE!"
"OH DON'T YOU DARE GO NIBBLING AT ME YOU LITTLE FUCKER!"
"OR WHAT‽ HOW DO YOU PLAN ON SKINNING ME‽ YOU DON'T EXACTLY HAVE THE NECESSARY EQUIPMENT LYING AROUND!"
"OH DON'T I‽"

Suddenly, Harley whipped out a weapon from his pocket and pointed it at Peter.

"You wouldn't dare..." whispered Peter more menacingly than is natural for him.

Harley smirked and looked Peter dead in the eyes as he answered with equal volume and threat, "There's nothing I wouldn't dare do right now, Petey Pie."

Peter visibly paled as he looked down at the butter knife in Harley's hand.

Just as Peter was about to do something either very brave or very stupid, he froze.
His advanced hearing picked up on something.

Noticing this sudden change in his opponent, Harley lowered the butter knife and asked, "What it is?"

Peter's gaze slowly drifted up and he whispered, "There are people in the vents..."

Harley looked up, gulped slightly then looked back down anxiously to Peter. "Truce?" he said.
"Truce." Peter agreed.

Careful not to make a sound, they both slowly got up and positioned themselves around the vent cover, Harley pointing his butter knife at it and Peter ready with his web shooters.

The sounds of shuffling got closer until they were right above their heads. But, to their surprise, the shuffling stopped above them and someone actually knocked on the vent cover.

Exchanging a glance, Peter and Harley edged closer, and Peter used his webs to slowly pry open the vent...

Out popped a face Peter recognised but was definitely not expecting.

Peter's tense face burst into a smile, leaving Harley in confusion.
"Peter...who is this?"

As Peter was about to answer, he got distracted by the sound of others whispering in German accents from the vents. "Is everything okay out there?"
"Is Peter there?"
"Have the other Avengers caught us?"
"Can we please come out I wanna see him again!"

Peter instantly broke into ramble mode, "Yeah it's all clear out here guys, you're good to come out! Harley is here too but he's cool, I promise! Oh everyone, this is Harley! Harley these are all my Hydra friends: Wolfgang, Otto, Gunther, Armin, Klaus, Fritz, and Nikolaus! I can't believe you guys actually came back!!!"

"Of course we came back!" Wolfgang grinned.
"We promised, didn't we?" Armin added.
"Awww you guys!" Peter said before forming a group hug whilst Harley watched on in amusement.

It seemed that Peter had forgotten about Harley's presence for a moment but soon remembered and snapped round to look at him with the biggest puppy eyes the teen had ever seen, "You won't tell the others will you? I don't want them interrogating my friends."

"I don't know, Pete... They are Hydra after all... And Tony would be furious if he found out you snuck them in again..."
"But Harley pleas-"
"Let me finish, princess. I mean technically we are grounded and banned from having friends over so we'd be in a lot of trouble if we got caught... But hey when aren't we in trouble! Come on you little octopodes, let's all play some MarioKart!"

"Yes! Thank you, Harley!!!" Peter cheered, practically bouncing off the walls in excitement.

But Harley grabbed him by the shoulders and held him still and spoke, "On one condition..."
"Yes...?"
"This is a complete free for all," Harley answered, "and I mean more of a free for all than usual. You can use your web shooters, Lego, etc.. I can use potatoes, pepper spray, superglue, all that stuff. And they can use whatever they want. They can use the furniture if they need to. This is not confined to one room; we have the whole floor, except for the very last race when we all have to come back in here. FRIDAY could you please make sure there is something for us to see the game on in each room? There are no rules now. Nothing is too far. The line cannot be crossed for the line is removed entirely."
"Oh boy. I mean it sounds amazingly chaotic but...Oh boy..."

A few hours later...

"Sir, I believe you should go to Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dummer's floor. They require assistance." FRIDAY said solemnly.

Tony looked up from his science-y engineer-y work he was working on (author using big brains for this chapter) and felt immediate dread.
FRIDAY was only ever to call them that if they had somehow, together, done something so completely moronic that they were unable to save themselves from the mess they made.

As he reached their floor, Tony braced himself for what he might find. But nothing in the world could prepare him for the sight that greeted him.

Peter was pinned against the wall using potatoes? There was a snorkel on his face and he looked like he'd been drowned in PVA glue... (Tony didn't know it but he had almost drowned in the pool on their floor that Harley had decided to fill with potatoes and PVA glue.) Peter's clothes appeared to be torn on places but that rather suited the rest of him at the current time. Around his head Peter had tied something like a ninja headband and he was screaming some terrifying harpee war-cry as he hurtled down rainbow road...

Okay, one weird kid accounted for, Tony noted to himself, now where's the other bastard?

It took him a moment to find Harley, who was cackling madly from the ceiling, held in place by Peter's webs. Harley had somehow acquired a black eye and a large number of feathers which we stuck in his hair and on his person. Tony also noticed that Harley had an equally high number of Lego pieces stuck to him, all looking very painful and a few bleeding. He was still managing however to hold his Wii remote with great force, despite it being covered with Lego bricks, as he steered to try and get ahead of Peter. Harley too seemed to have the same strip of fabric as Peter did on his head, but Harley instead opted to tie it around his arm. On it Tony could make out a familiar orange logo...

Oh hell no! he mentally cursed, taking in the rest of the people around the room, all in varying states of wounded and defeated.

One guy knotted through the ladder of one of the bunk beds, which had somehow ended up there?
Another guy half through a chair and hanging from the ceiling, caught in webs?
A foot sticking out from a pile of potatoes?
One guy just lying face down like a starfish in the middle of the floor?
Someone else glued to the back wall and completely covered in feathers?
One stuck in the corner of the ceiling, completely out of action?
And a final one with Lego superglued to the bottom of his feet and potatoes on his head?

And all of them with the orange octopus...

Utterly flabbergast by the site, poor old Anthony just sighed, "Hey, FRI, assemble the Avengers. I don't care which ones just...just do it. And maybe book me a nice long holiday for one. Or maybe two? Probably should invite Pepper..."

"All the Avengers that are currently in the building are on their way, sir." she replied.

It didn't take long for them to arrive and find Tony rubbing his temples outside the room that contained all the many horrors.

Steve, Bucky, Natasha, and Clint all looked confused by the summons so clearly FRIDAY had not explained to them the situation. Though could Tony really blame her for that? How the hell do you even explain what's happening in there‽

Unable to put it into words, Tony just pointed at the appropriate door and muttered, "Harley. Peter. Hydra agents. MarioKart. Crazy. Idiots." and other incoherent words along those lines.

Still just as confused, they cautiously opened the door, and moved into the centre of the room, ready to fight, and were baffled by what they saw.

"What. The. Hell." Clint said loud enough to snap everyone out of their focus on the game.

"Oh uh...hey guys..." Peter said awkwardly, snorkel still on his face.

Nobody seemed too impressed by Peter's present choice of company, least of all Steve who decided to dust off his trusty disappointed grandpa voice, "Peter, Harley, what do you kids think you're doing having seven Hydra agents over without even mentioning it to us! And Peter, you especially I expected better from! Don't you remember the last time they came around and how much it affected Bucky?"

Peter looked over the pile of potatoes covering him to Bucky who was getting more and more anxious and Peter did start to feel very guilty.

"I'm very sorry, Mr Rogers Sir. And I'm sorry I'm making Mr Barnes upset. Are you alright, Mr Barnes Sir?" Peter said in his most sincere voice.

Everyone looked over to Bucky, who was muttering things while Natasha tried to keep him calm.

"Don't wanna go back with them. Please don't let them take me. Never again. Never want that torture again. Hell. Demons. Never again. Don't wanna go back..." Bucky mumbled.

"It's okay, Bucky," Steve said, "none of us are going to let Hydra torture or use you again."

Bucky looked like he was on the verge of laughing for a second before he said, "Not Hydra. Where Hydra sent me. Stupid stupid assignment. Torture. Never again."
"Bucky what are you talking about? What did they make you do?" Steve asked.
The colour somewhat drained from Bucky's face "They made me teach, Steve! They made me teach little girls! In Russia. I had to teach them how to be killers. But that's not even the worst part..."

By this point everyone in the room was pretty confused, after all, what could be worse than all of Hydra's torturing?

"It was every night! Every single night they would do it!"
"Do what, Buck?"
"They would braid my hair! And then make me braid theirs! And then sing them lullabies and tell them bedtime stories! I could just about understand the younger ones doing it but even the damn teenagers! I was sent there to train assassins not be a nanny!"

Nobody else seemed sure how to react to this new information except Natasha, who started laughing and patted him on back.

"Aw James, I can't believe you remember that!" she said between laughs, "And you consider it worse than anything else Hydra did to you? I'd say I'm sorry but it really was fun at the time."

Bucky looked absolutely betrayed and said in shock, "You!"

Natasha smirked back smugly, "Me."

At this moment Tony decided to butt in, "Ok sorry but for those of us who weren't there what are you two on about?"

They exchanged glances before Natasha proudly replied, "I'm the one who suggested to all the other girls that they do his hair and get him to do theirs. I never actually joined in I just watched. Don't know who started the stories and lullabies though..."

"Huh," Tony said, "not bad Romanoff. But anyway, we should really decide what we're doing with these guys..."

"I suggest unsticking them, then taking them into custody." contributed the Cap.
"ArE wE aDoPtInG tHeM‽" Peter gasped, eliciting a hasty "NO!" from Tony.

"Peter, are you okay to free yourself from the potatoes?" Clint asked.
"Do I have to? I've gotten kind of comfy and warm down here. The pool of blood really grows on you..."

"You're sitting in a pool of blood‽" exclaimed Tony. Peter nodded gravely. "Is it your blood?"
"Yeah, I think so..."
"Great. Do you know where it's coming from?"
"Probably the stab wound."
"You've been stabbed‽"
"Oh yeah, definitely."
"Right then, kid, which of these Hydra lowlifes did it?"

Slowly, Peter and Harley both raised their hands.

"Why am I not surprised!" Tony cried.

Peter then decided it would be very helpful to add in that they "shouldn't worry, it was just an accident and he and Harley should have really kept track of where the butter knife was."

"IT WAS A BUTTER KNIFE?!?!!!" Tony shrieked.
"Yeah..."

Without another word, Tony walked out, needing a moment to whack his head very hard against a wall because a facepalm would not be enough for this child.

"Mr Rogers..." Peter began nervously.
"Yes, Peter?" He replied as patiently and kindly as he could.
"I feel really bad about what I've done but I'm not sure what to do to fix it...?"
"Well you could try asking Jesus to forgive you? I've done it a few times and as long as I'm being sincere then it helps me feel better."
"I'll try that then!" Peter said smiling, making Steve smile in return.

Using a lot of superhero strength, Peter emerged from the potatoes, still bleeding slightly from where the butter knife had been, and walked over to Bucky.

Directly in front of Bucky, Peter got into his knees and looked like he was hailing or praying to him.

Steve was about to ask what Peter was doing but before he could do so Peter spoke and said to Bucky, "Forgive me, father, for I have sinned."
Amazingly, Bucky decided to play along and answer, "You are forgiven, my son."

Natasha, Clint, and Bucky each stiffled a laugh, while Steve just looked done with the world.

Peter now had a bright smile on his face and turned to Harley, who was still a wall decoration, and said to him, "I feel way better now! You should really try asking Jesus over there for forgiveness too!"

Harley looked at Bucky sceptically and Bucky looked back and declared, "That one has seen too much corruption and feels no remorse. He seeks not forgiveness nor change and so shall pay for his sins in hell."

Nobody in the room could contain their laughter any longer and everyone was in hysterics, besides Steve.

"Okay enough fun and games. Sort out this mess. Peter, Harley go to the infirmary. Bucky go with them if you want. We'll stay here and round up the prisoners. Clint, do you or Natasha want to call Fury? He would probably want to know about this..."