real life | protocol morning glory: a symphony in kazoos

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the sound of heavy, running footsteps echoed down the hallway like a stampede of elephants.

cartia didn't even flinch.

she was too busy grinning, smug and victorious, as the kazoo inferno continued to blare through every speaker in the tower.

sam would have loved this. unfortunately, his parents wanted the whole of their family to spend a night at their house, and so he wasn't by his best friend's side. and truthfully, she was bored.

the door burst open again, this time admitting an even more dishevelled set of avengers: wanda, in mismatched socks and a hoodie several sizes too big. loki and peter, blinking blearily, with the latter clutching his phone like a weapon. natasha, sharp and furious and holding what looked suspiciously like a screwdriver. and bruce, already sipping coffee, as if he'd anticipated this the moment he'd gone to bed.

"you did not...," loki said flatly, surveying the scene.

"protocol morning glory?" wanda groaned. "cartia, why."

"because it's iconic," cartia replied, utterly unrepentant. "also, i missed everyone. what better way to bring the family together than psychological warfare at dawn? protocol morning glory: a symphony in kazoos."

bruce raised an eyebrow. "there's therapy, for one."

"less efficient," sam chimed in helpfully. "also not as funny."

grace made a noise, something between a groan and a strangled prayer.

spencer, rubbing at his eyes, muttered, "i swear to gods, if jordan wasn't already up—"

as if summoned by name, jordan poked his head into the lounge, bleary-eyed, hoodie zipped all the way up, hair sticking up in every direction.

"...is it pancake emergency time?" he asked sleepily.

"yes." cartia said, very solemnly.

a beat.

jordan nodded and vanished back into the hallway, presumably to go get the rest of their siblings who had somehow disabled all wake up calls in their room. they refused to say how they did it. or, jordan was possibly attempting to hide. hard to say.

natasha stalked across the lounge, glaring. "i am deleting that protocol," she said, deadly serious. "from every file system in this tower. and the backups. and the backups' backups."

"you say that every time," cartia sang.

"one day i will mean it."

sam stood, stretching. "right. so... pancakes."

"no." came a chorus of exhausted voices.

"yes." said cartia, triumphant.

bucky, who had been valiantly ignoring the entire debacle in favour of scrolling through his phone, finally looked up. "we're not seriously rewarding her with pancakes after this, right?"

"she's recovering from trauma," steve muttered.

"she's a menace," bucky muttered back.

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