The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Beach Goers

Disclaimer: I still don't own the Avengers...

A/N: Since this is the second installment of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest... series, it is recommended that you read the first part before this one. You can definitely still enjoy this one without reading the first, but you may be a bit confused when it comes to the end. A part of the first story is mentioned there.

Anyway, without further ado, the story...

Almost a year after their camping trip, the Avengers met up again. They had seen each other throughout that year, but nothing was planned. Just happenstance meetings where two or three of them would run across each other's paths. Nothing more.

Bruce had been the one to set up the meeting. Well, Pepper did, but he had come up with the idea. He had called Pepper, who proposed the idea to Tony. The billionaire had agreed readily this time. Pepper planned everything out and a week later, all of them were in the same bus they had driven to the campsite.

This time Natasha was driving. Pepper took shotgun and the two women chattered on. As usual, the boys played around in the back of the bus. Normally this would have been distracting, but Natasha was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and she handled distractions well.

"Would you please shut up?!"

So she handled them loudly, but apparently it was effective, as the men did 'shut up'.

"Sorry," Steve muttered.

Natasha rolled her eyes and said under her breath, "Yeah, that's what I thought."

Forty-five minutes into the ride, Clint started squirming in his seat. Five minutes after that, he very nearly got out of his seat. After two more minutes he couldn't take it anymore. "You said it would only take twenty-five minutes. It's been nearly an hour!"

Natasha turned. Luckily, they were at a red light. If they hadn't been, there would've been an accident.

"Clint, we're lost. Sorry."

Groans went up from everyone. Clint's was loudest.

Seven minutes after the groans, Natasha yelled, "Douglass Avenue doesn't exist!"

Several of the passengers jumped. Several meant all of them except Pepper, who had seen Natasha's knuckles turn white in her anger.

"I knew Pepper should have driven us," Clint said quietly. "Nat's never been good at following directions."

Natasha pulled into a parking lot, climbed out of the driver's seat and traded places with Pepper.

Ten minutes later, Pepper had miraculously found her way to the beach. When Natasha declared that some magical force helped the other woman when she was behind the wheel, Loki smiled slightly.

Natasha looked at him for a moment before she seemed to have been hit with something. She asked accusingly, "Hey, have you been wiggling your fingers?"

'Wiggling your fingers' was their way to say 'using magic'. Clint had come up with it after Loki had angrily declared for the thirty-first time that it wasn't magic, and that it was 'Simply bidding the cosmic energy of Yggdrasil to his own bidding!'

Only Bruce had understood anything that he had said. Plus, it would've been really hard to say, "Have you been bending cosmic energy again?" It was much easier and less awkward to say 'wiggling your fingers'.

Loki raised his hands in surrender. "Not me."

Natasha glared, but didn't say anything else.

It's amazing, really, the amount of time it takes for one to change into one's swimsuit. If it takes so long for one, imagine how long it took for eight people to change. Especially when, for some reason or another, there was only one bathroom to change in.

Natasha volunteered to brave the Porta Potty first. The rest of the group could hear her gagging and choking from outside. Bruce folded his arms over his chest and Tony turned.

"I'll change in the bus," he announced, starting to walk away. "It must be poison in th-OW!"

Pepper had grabbed hold of his ear and kept him where he was. She rolled her eyes and said, "Tony, listen to her. She's just messing around."

Tony seemed to understand what Pepper meant and said quietly, "Oh. Yeah. I knew that."

Pepper rolled her eyes and smiled when Natasha came out of the Porta Potty grinning. She went in next, leaving Natasha shaking her head, the smile still on her face.

The men filed in after her, each of them pleasantly surprised to find that it had apparently just been cleaned out.

Steve - not surprisingly - wore American trunks. Not only were they red, white and blue, but also made in America. He had been happy to find that out.

Bruce wore simple black trunks. He wasn't very expressive in his clothing choices. To be honest, he was never very expressive unless he was angry or talking about science.

Clint's trunks were dark blue. They had cargo pockets all over the,. Bruce didn't understand why trunks would even need pockets, but the archer liked them.

Thor's were lighter blue with red accents. The strangest, most noticeable things about them were the little Mjolnirs. Those were different.

Loki wore dark green trunks and a thin black tank top. It made him look even thinner than usual. When asked why he wore the shirt, he explained that, due to his Jötun heritage, he was very sensitive to the sun and burned easily.

Natasha wore a bright yellow tankini. It was cute and went well with her orange flip-flops and huge pink sunglasses. Clint snickered at her eyewear, but stopped. Not because he felt like being nice, but because she punched his stomach. Never underestimate a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Not even if the said S.H.I.E.L.D. agent wore a frilly bathing suit and pink sunglasses.

Peppers one piece was a bit more modest than Natasha's. Hers was a very light spring green that looked very nice with her hair. She paired it with white sunglasses and flip-flops of the same color. It made her look younger.

Everyone looked pretty good in their swimsuits, but Tony's took the cake. It was a deep red that matched his Iron Man armor. The rest of the group didn't understand why he was acting like his trunks were the best at first, but once he got close enough, they could see the little golden dollar signs. But wait, that's not all! The dollar signs were wearing sunglasses. Yes. Tony's definitely were the best.

Clint grinned and gave Tony a thumbs-up. "Sweet."

About an hour later, all the Avengers minus Thor were in the water. Clint, Natasha, Bruce, Steve, Tony, and even Pepper were all splashing around.

"Brother, please?"

"No."

Thor had been trying to get Loki in the water for about ten minutes. He had run out of ways to convince him. Well, not quite. He still had one more tactic to use before he would have to do it the hard way.

He made his eyes go all big in his puppy face.

"Please? For me?"

Loki hesitated that time before he said flatly, "No."

Thor sighed. Hard way it would have to be, then. He lifted Loki from the sand, and, much to the smaller man's indignation carried him to the waves over one shoulder.

Loki sounded annoyed at first. Then his voice turned angry. Then pleading. Then terrified as Thor stood in knee-deep water.

"Thor, no, please. Please! I'm begging you, Thor! No! No, no, no, no! Thor! Nonononononononono!"

SPLASH! Thor dropped Loki into the water and laughed as the latter let out a yelp when he hit the water.

Loki sat in the waves, wide-eyed and shivering. Only his head, shoulders and knees showed. Judging by the angle his legs went out at, his knees were turned in.

"I hate you," he grumbled as Thor helped him up. His voice held no venom, however, and Thor only laughed harder.

Exactly one hour and twenty-two minutes later, Clint announced that he wanted to make a sand castle. Thor thought it sounded fun, and everyone else said they looked like prunes. In the end, they all decided it was time to get out of the water.

Clint ran to the bus and pulled out a bag. Natasha had seen it before, but had no idea what was in it.

"What's that?" she asked as he walked up to them.

Clint dumped the bag onto the sand. Buckets and shovels tumbled out. He sorted through them and looked up. He had a huge grin on his face as he said, "Sand castle stuff."

Natasha smiled. She crouched next to him and picked up a pink plastic shovel. "We are going to make the best sand castle ever."

About fifteen minutes later, the sand castle was developing splendidly. Tony was out on water duty. He carried two buckets to haul it back with.

He squatted down in the water and filled the first bucket and set it on the sand, making sure it didn't fall over. The he filled the next and shot up, clutching his backside. The bucket lay forgotten in the sand nearby, its contents spilled.

"OW! My beautiful butt! My delightful derriere! My fabulous fanny! My radical rear-end! My fantastic fart-cannon! My-"

"Alright. We get it. Your butt hurts." Clint sounded slightly annoyed.

"-hurting heinie."

Clint walked closer to Tony and bent over. He lifted up a crab and threw it way out into the water. Then he looked back up at the billionaire. "Better?"
Tony didn't say anything for a moment. Then he shook his head, whimpering, "Not really."

Clint just glared and filled the buckets by himself, carried them both back to the partially built sand castle and got back to work.

Nobody asked for Tony's help with the project after that.

About two hours after that, everyone was gathered around the castle. It was big enough to actually walk around inside of it. It only had one room, but the size of the thing outweighed the lack of rooms.

Tony was still pouting about the whole being left out of the construction thing. Nevertheless, he still gaped up at the castle. It had been about three times smaller than that about five minutes ago.

Loki stared at the castle as it continued to grow. His lips moved, urging the growth. His eyes seemed to glow and thin tendrils of green whisped around him, tangling in his hair and swirling around his legs.

Clint danced from foot to foot. Natasha smiled at the child-like excitement shining in the archer's eyes.

Finally Loki finished. He hadn't changed the structure of the castle at all. Just made it bigger. He motioned toward the giant sand castle and said, "It's safe now. Go on."

Clint didn't waste a moment. He ran into the castle. His cry of, "This is awesome!" could be heard from outside.

Everyone else filtered in after him. Natasha gave Loki a quick squeeze of his shoulder as she passed. It was accompanied by a whispered, "Thanks."

While everyone was inside admiring their work, a voice came through the doorway.

"Knock, knock!"

Thor's face lit up. "Jane!"

The thunderer flew past Loki, grinning like a maniac. A moment later he came back in, leading a certain young scientist by her hand. They were followed by another girl who was taking pictures with her cell phone.

Thor introduced Jane to the group. Natasha and Pepper seemed grateful to have another girl to talk with.

Jane smiled at everyone. Everyone, that it, but Loki. When her eyes fell on him, her smile wavered. It didn't completely disappear, though.

"Oh my gosh. Is that actually Loki?" Darcy sounded completely amazed.

Jane nodded slowly and said, "Yes." She looked back up at Thor and asked, "Um, Thor? Isn't he a bad guy?"

Thor then explained once again how Loki had been controlled and tormented. How his little brother had really never seriously wanted to rule Midgard.

Jane immediately accepted the story. She didn't see why Thor would lie to her. He wasn't much of a liar. She could tell when he lied about little things, like birthday presents, so he would never be able to pull off a lie that big.

Darcy just took a picture of the dark haired god, who blinked in the bright flash of light. Then she got the, all to stand together.

Thor held Jane's hand and had an arms around Loki's shoulders. The latter smiled. It wasn't one of those weird, creep smiles. It was real.

Bruce was on Loki's other side, smooshed in between the god and Tony. Tony grinned and Pepper smiled from hr place beside him. Natasha stood beside Pepper with Clint on her other side. The archer had h=the brightest smile of all.

Once Darcy was satisfied with their positions, she ran out of the sand castle. She came back a moment later leading a fat guy with a sunburn. She took her place and told the man, "Don't cut anyone out, and hit the camera icon when you're ready."

Several tries later, the finally got a good picture. The man shoved Darcy's cell phone back into her hand and muttered something under his breath. Darcy only stuck out her tongue at his back as he walked out of the castle.

A while after dinner, the group took a walk along the beach. The couples - Tony and Pepper, Thor and Jane, and Clint and Natasha - all walked close to one another. Loki, Bruce, Steve and Darcy all walked behind them.

Darcy kept flirting with Steve, but he only stayed quiet and unresponsive. His face was pink, though. Darcy eventually gave up and stared out at the sunset, her bottom lip stuck out in a pout.

Bruce and Loki talked quietly for a while, but eventually Loki's answers become nods, shakes of his head and noncommittal sounds. Bruce could tell that something was bothering the other man, but decided to give him privacy. If he wanted to talk about it, he would.

Just when the horizon seemed to be set on fire, Bruce stopped. Loki looked over at him and asked, "What is it?"

Bruce looked down at his feet. One still had a shoe, but the other was missing its purple flip-flop. "Lost my shoe," was his soft answer.

Tony turned around. "You lost your flippity flop?"

Bruce nodded sadly. "I lost my flippity flop."

Tony frowned. "Well, it can't be too far behind. If we all look, we'll find it quick."

They didn't find it quick. In fact, it took them about an hour to find the lost flippity flop. In the end, it was Darcy who found it. She ran up to Bruce, waving it around wildly.

"I found it! I found your shoe!"

She nearly tripped a few times, stumbling in her own flip-flops.

"I found it." She pressed the shoe into Bruce's hands. He immediately slipped it onto his foot.

"That's better. Thanks."

Thor looked up at the sky and boomed, "Loki! Come back, we've found it!"

A raven swooped down and transformed into the god of mischief.

"Oh, good," he said, plucking a feather from his hair. "It's rather tiring, having to flap one's wings just to keep from plummeting to the ground."

Tony nodded slowly. "Right." Then he clapped his hands together and said more brightly, "Well! Since we found the missing shoe, and the beach is about to close, we should probably get going."

They all reluctantly agreed that it was time to go home. As usual, the Asgardians were the first to leave.

"Farewell, my friends," Thor boomed. He hugged everyone goodbye. Jane also received a gentle kiss. "We will come back soon!"

Loki gave out smiles, but offered no words. This was still nicer than the last goodbyes he gave.

Thor looked up at the sky, calling out, "Heimdall!"

Natasha seemed to remember something. She ran up to Loki and the two spoke softly for a moment. The she handed him something that no-one could see and walked back to Clint.

"That wasn't your number, was it?"

Natasha ignored the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and waved as Thor and Loki disappeared.

Jane and Darcy then drove off after asking Pepper to let them know when they were all going to meet again.

Pepper drove the rest of them back to Stark Tower, where they retied to their rooms.

Thus the Avengers' day at the beach ended.

A/N: I have a list of stories I'd like to write in this fandom. The next one up will be a July 4th cookout, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Here are all the other ideas I have:

Christmas/New Years

Slumber Party

Visit to Asgard

Clint and Natasha babysitting Loki's little angels

Avengers Bonding Time (I'm taking ideas to flesh out this one a bit more)

Amusement Park

Museum

Museum of Aviation

Car Show (I got this idea from a local car show. The actual car Cap yanks the door off of in Captain America was there.)

Super Bowl

Bus Wash and Paint (Where the team revamps their ride)

Let me know if you have any other ideas you'd like me to write, and give me feedback on the existing ones.

Reviews earn you a big Thor hug!

Till next time, my lovelies!