The Happiest Place on Earth
Ch. 1 – Eyes on the Road
Natasha Romanoff clutched the wheel of the large green Suburban and growled at traffic. Agent Coulson's voice rang in her ears. "Just go with it!" he said. "It'll be fun!" he said. "They'll really enjoy it!" he said. "You might like it too!" The red-haired former KGB espionage agent seriously considered accidentally adding Phil's name to one of the lists of people to harass. She had been behind the wheel of this vintage tank for six hours – that's already six hours more than she thought she could stand. Director Fury, surely in his infinite wisdom, had insisted on the older model. Harder to identify, looked like everything else, that all probably went into it. But the steering grabbed, the brakes sounded like power drills being sat on, and the air conditioner worked half-heartedly at best. For passing through Fayetteville, North Carolina in the middle of June, that sucked. Sure, it probably had every single safety feature SHIELD had to offer and some that Stark idiot stuck in just for fun… They probably couldn't be safer in Air Force One at this point!
However, if there was any bodily harm to the vehicle's occupants to be worried about, Natasha couldn't be all that sure she wouldn't do it herself! Sam was an easy enough passenger – thank every god she didn't even believe in for that. He'd picked up a load of car magazines, flight journals, and a guidebook to the parks and settled quietly to read in the front seat. Out of habit, he scanned the surroundings for traffic hang-ups, traffic cops, and construction. Mercifully, he remained quiet about most things, given that the GPS alerted them to every little thing and apparently couldn't be shut off. Yeah, Sam Wilson couldn't have made a more ideal passenger! With this thought, Natasha stole a poisonous glance up at her rear-view mirror.
Right out the gate, she had considered handcuffing both of them to their seats, for as much their safety as anyone else's. The one behind her driver's side seat, with his perfect blonde hair and clear blue eyes, had not actually gone to sleep last night. Some traitor – she heavily suspected her significant other – had gifted him with an iPod full of that music and speakers to plug into. She'd beat him mercilessly for it later. About five in the morning, everyone had been awakened by a rousing chorus of "Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life for Me." Immediately after that, Natasha had popped her first Excedrin and hoped she would somehow drown in the shower. The one in the back passenger seat stared suspiciously out of the window, his uncut brown hair obscuring narrowed eyes. His response to the Great Pirate Lord of the Five AM Wake-Up Call had been first a panic attack, then rage. Thankfully, it turned out to be the special kind of rage reserved for one's best friend, particularly when said best friend awakens one at an ungodly hour. Both of them sported a few bruises from the encounter.
Natasha reached for her energy drink and chugged heavily at the memory of Director Fury's entirely-too-joyful smile and his lingering call of "Y'all have fun!" She could still count today as a good day, she reasoned – that was only her fourth in six hours.
"Eyes on the road," reminded Sam, looking up from his magazine and flicking his eyes round to be sure no one had seen her swerve slightly.
He quailed momentarily at the death-stare from the driver's seat and shrugged back into his reading.
"STEVE!" shrieked Natasha as they saw the first exit sign for Savannah. "IF I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO TURN YOUR HEADPHONES DOWN ONE MORE TIME, I'M GOING TO STRANGLE YOU WITH THEM!"
The next four hours of driving, plus three rest stops – caffeine one hell of a diuretic effect – had seen the redhead consume an energy drink per hour, plus three double cheeseburgers. Her hands shook and her usually-perfect hair stood almost on end from the humidity. Bucky had somehow stuck all of the windows in the "down" position. Everything stank of paper mill and river garbage. Sam had shut his headphones off entirely and began using them entirely as earplugs. About an hour ago, Captain America and the infamous Winter Soldier had apparently reverted to their eleven-year-old selves. An hour minus five minutes ago, Natasha Romanoff's eye started to twitch. And that wasn't even beginning to count the trip through the McDonald's drive-thru. For some reason, Fury had been very specific about not letting those two out of the car except for public rest areas. Pilot Wilson sneaked a look in the back seat and cringed – nah, he couldn't possibly imagine why…
And then it started to rain.
Oh, of course it was just one of those things that happened in the South in the summertime. Sometimes the clouds, out of anyone's control – even SHIELD's, but they were working on that – the clouds would just sort of get together and explode on everything. They had passed through Brunswick a while ago, and on this part of I-95, one could expect to see a whole lot of nothing. Traffic had ground to a groaning rather than screeching halt as visibility reduced to almost zilch. Sam had finally managed to talk Natasha into grabbing a couple giant bottles of water at their last stop for gas. She had downed one in approximately five minutes, nonchalantly chucking the empty bottle at Steve. The super-soldier had gotten his music stuck on repeat, "It's a Small World" echoing squeakily from his earbuds. After the next one, traffic nearly stopped entirely. That had been about forty minutes ago and now the spy's back teeth were floating.
"Eyes on the road, Romanoff!" yelled Sam, clutching the oh shit handle as she swung dangerously around a stalled Prius at the last second. "What are you doing?"
Natasha glared at him and stabbed a finger in the direction of the nearest exit.
"Oh, no… No, no, no!" called Steve from the back. "I clearly heard Director Fury say…"
The large SUV lurched horribly as Natasha jerked it into the next lane over.
"Say nothing!" she yelled in the direction of the back seat.
Bucky clutched his midsection and stuck his head out the window to catch the rain for a second.
"Can you quit being an Eagle Scout for two seconds?" he groused, sounding ill. "She has to pee and she's getting off the exit!"
Steve punched Bucky for being crass, swearing himself as his knuckles connected with metal where a bicep should have been. The brunette gave him a shit-eating grin and administered a metal-handed pinch to Steve's side. Before either Natasha or Sam could say another word, the two overgrown man-children had devolved into a flurry of poorly-aimed whacks at each other. Wrappers from the earlier Mickey D's run had gone sailing back and forth, flying out of the open windows. At least with the windows already being stuck, Sam thought silently, they didn't have to worry about breaking those. A knee connected sharply with the back of his seat and he let out a "Hey!" in protest. Turning around, he didn't care that he added fuel to the fire by lobbing a magazine at them. Grinding her teeth, Natasha wondered if rolling the SUV clear over to the exit might quiet them down some…
The green Suburban might possibly have jumped over those last three cars before the exit – with SHIELD's features, sometimes it could get hard to tell. One way or another, though, the party of four found the vehicle rolling up the exit and stopped at a stoplight. They seemed to be in the middle of absolutely nowhere. There hadn't been a sign to indicate where a gas station or anything else might be. The remains of what had been one of those signs looked like it had been hit by several trucks, the actual sign bit having been removed by GDOT presumably a while ago. One of the legs stuck morosely out of several inches of muddy water. With the vehicle at rest, three occupants became acutely aware of the "oog" noise produced by the fourth.
"Oh God, Bucky, no!" yelled Steve, yanking out his earbuds. "Do it out the window!"
Bucky tore right through his seat belt and stuck the top half of his body out of the window. No one particularly tried to hide their disgusted faces at the sound that followed. After that, the odor of cheeseburger with onions in reverse on wet asphalt assaulted the Winter Soldier like bad karma. The beep of the "seat belt off" alert seemed to pierce right through Natasha's eardrums. Her eye twitched dangerously again as she squeezed her knees together. Sam fished through the glove box and, without looking, offered a travel pack of Kleenex over his shoulder. Steve took it on Bucky's behalf as the brunette continued to ralph up most of his digestive system. After several minutes, during which the light did not change, Bucky hauled himself back inside and flopped miserably into his seat. Steve reached behind him, caught hold of the car blanket, and chucked it at his best friend. In mere seconds, the former Winter Soldier had cocooned himself in the Polarfleece, glaring at everyone.
"UGH! CHANGE ALREADY!" Natasha bellowed very suddenly at the red light. "Fuck… Fuck… Fuck…"
After about thirty F-bombs, the light had still not changed.
"Natasha, don't…" Steve started.
He couldn't get the rest of his words out before Natasha's booted foot hit the accelerator and she swung the hulking SUV onto the slick, poorly maintained country road. Bucky let out a wet-sounding burp and swallowed hard, but had managed to stick his arms firmly to his sides with the blankets. Steve yelled and stuck an arm out the window to hold onto the vehicle's roof. Sam just covered his face with one hand and muttered "Jesus take the wheel..." before shouting "Away from her!" Only Natasha's years of training enabled her not to spin the SUV several times in the turn. Through the driving rain, she could see her goal – a forlorn-looking Texaco station on the edge of a thick pine forest. Today was one of those days for her, in that whether she was starting or stopping, her foot would hit the floor. Her passengers protested vocally again as the Suburban practically leapt down the street. Okay, they might have skidded sideways into that parking lot…
"I'll be right back!" Natasha announced, trying to keep the frantic note out of her voice.
Her hands were shaking so badly that she missed the door handle several times, and then it took a few more good tries before she could get the door open at all. She swatted Steve's assisting hand out of the way, kicked the door open, and bolted away into the rain towards the outbuilding. Right away, the three men remaining in the car noticed something very much not right. While they could see the little man on the blue sign indicating the men's room, the door that should have been marked "women" or "ladies" was nowhere to be found. Natasha, they observed, had noticed this fact as well, but she squared her shoulders and march-waddled right in.
Natasha found herself standing in four inches of water that she would just rather not think about. In the first stall, a very large woman was trying to coach a terrified little girl into using the facilities. Privately, the ex-KGB agreed with the little girl's howls. Neither of the stalls had doors on them. However, when one has to go that badly, one tends to go wherever one can. For a moment, she briefly considered sprinting out the door and making a break for the woods. But none of the guys would ever let her live that down, so that was most definitely not an option. Trying very hard not to take a deep breath, she edged into the open handicapped stall.
Okay, that wasn't so bad once she got it over with…
She tried to ignore the water splashing around her ankles as she hit the soap dispenser three times – nothing happened. The other one was broken as well. Her hand sanitizer remained in her purse, which she had not bothered to bring in with her. As she stared into the spotty and broken mirror, she considered herself just exceptionally lucky that there had been barely enough toilet paper. Growling and cursing under her breath, she straightened her back, determined to keep some pride, and left. Pride took an immediate back seat to sprinting back to the Suburban and practically leaping inside. The men in the vehicle all looked mildly alarmed. Here had come the Black Widow, charging towards the SUV and now sitting in the driver's seat dripping wet and wild-eyed.
"That…" she pronounced after a long moment. "… was foul!"
Sam felt he might lose a hand if he reached one over to pat her shoulder.
"Uh… Eyes on the road, Romanoff?" he offered as a measure of comfort.
He totally expected it when she punched him.