THUMP

SNAP

BANG

THUMP

THUMP

CRASH

"Okay, do I even want to know?" asked Steve, who had his face buried in his hands, refusing to look out of the windows at the damage.

"Well, it doesn't look like anything's broken," remarked Bruce, who was peering out of the back windows of the sports car at the scattered multicolored kayaks littering the small dirt clearing that constituted as a parking lot.

"Good," said Steve, dropping his hands. "Because if my kayak was broken, then I would have to take Tony's. And his is probably all hi-tech or something."

"Why would you take mine?!" cried Tony from the driver's seat, taking off his sunglasses to glare at Steve.

"Because you're the one who fishtailed into the parking lot and dumped all of our kayaking equipment onto the ground!" retorted Steve.

"And also the person who insisted on taking the sports car, which meant we had to attach them with bungee cords and duct tape," added Bruce. "At least Clint took his van, however unsafe a vehicle it may be otherwise."

"Well, maybe you should have ridden with Clint, then," snarled Tony.

"You're kidding, right? I mean, you're a bad driver, but riding in the backseat of Clint's vehicle is practically a death wish."

"What do you mean, bad driver?" asked Tony. "Have you ever gotten in one car crash with me? Ever?"

"He means that while you mostly manage to keep the car right-side up and its inhabitants mainly unharmed, this may be due more to the fancy infrastructure of the car itself and less to do with your attention to traffic signs and regulations."

"Yeah, well, I practically paid for those traffic signs with my donations to the city, so I think I'm exempt from these rules."

"Yeah, I think not," said Steve as he pushed the door open and stepped out of the car. It was a perfect day in the middle of the morning - sunny with a cool breeze - leaving the group to vaguely wonder how they were going to manage to ruin it.

A strange thudding noise sounded from up the road, breaking through the calm setting and growing gradually louder.

"And here comes Clint," muttered Steve.

Clint's van screeched into the tree-lined clearing bordering the river a few moments later, throwing up clouds of dust and sending a couple of startled squirrels running for safety deeper into the forest. Loud rap music could be heard much too clearly through the open windows as the car finally stopped, sitting at a haphazard angle and its passengers climbed out.

"And that is why I was riding with Tony," remarked Bruce.

Clint was still sitting in the driver's seat, nodding his head with the strong beat and dancing slightly to the "music." Natasha walked over to his side of the car and wordlessly opened the door and pulled the keys out of the ignition, immediately stemming the flow of rapid and somewhat obscene language. Clint rolled his eyes but obligingly followed Tasha out of the car and over to the rest of the group.

Thor stumbled away from the car and over to some bushes, doubling over as he upended his quite large breakfast into the foliage. Bruce and Steve looked on sympathetically.

"Okay, come on, let's get this stuff unpacked," Tony said impatiently. "I've got a date with Pepper later and I am not going to miss it because you guys were being useless and Clint made Thor sick."

Thor staggered away from the bushes, a huge smile on his bearded face.

"That was immensely enjoyable!" Thor declared, beaming with his fists in the air. "Clint, may we ride once more?"

"No," Steve interjected as Clint began to move towards the van door. "No, Clint, we don't need you to make Thor sick again or risk you running the van into a tree. Sorry, Thor."

Thor looked disappointed, but recovered quickly as he saw Steve and Bruce grabbing the boats from where they had tumbled off the top of Tony's car.

"Oh! Allow me to assist!" he yelled, running over and immediately scooping up three of the kayaks, somehow managing to balance them on his huge shoulders as he made his way down to the dock. The rest of them followed suit, gathering up various supplies from their vehicles and piling them up on the wooden dock.

Clint was the one in charge of packing snacks.

"Ooh, what've we got for food?" Peter asked, sitting down cross-legged on the dock next to the various bags of supplies. He unzipped the top of the cooler bag and peeked inside excitedly, before his eyebrows crinkled in confusion.

"What is it, kid?" Steve asked amiably, setting down the two kayaks he had balanced on his shoulders that he had carried over from the car.

"Well…as far as I can tell, it's white bread. A lot of sliced white bread."

Tony threw up his hands, dropping his bag in the process.

"Seriously, Clint?"

"What," said Clint simply, who was sitting on top of one of the kayaks at the edge of the dock and had simply given up on pretending to look busy.

"I leave you in charge of packing snacks, and you give us bread."

Clint opened his mouth to reply, but Tony interrupted him.

"Bread is not a snack. Bread is the vital component of a sandwich, or a delicious side to a dish of pasta, but it is not a snack."

"What did you want me to do?" asked Clint, sounding thoroughly bored.

"Well, I didn't expect your job to be so difficult, considering the kitchen full of junk food on the third floor," retorted Tony, throwing his bag of bread back into the cooler.

"What are you doing? Aren't you gonna take that with you?" Clint called as Tony started walking to the other end of the dock.

"Why the hell would I want to take that with me?" Tony asked, not waiting for a reply as he went to help Tasha carry over the last kayak.

"Because it's delicious!" Clint yelled after him. "No, not you, too..." Clint groaned as Peter dropped his loaf of bread back into the cooler bag as well.

"Sorry, bro," Peter said, smiling sadly and shrugging before he turned and walked away after Tony.

A few minutes later, there were a row of variously colored kayaks lined up on the edge of the dock, and Steve was just coming back from having locked up the cars.

"Are we assembled for takeoff?" Steve asked the group excitedly, clapping his hands and looking around at the rest of them.

He was met with five blank stares (Thor was enthusiastically cloud-watching).

Steve sighed.

"Are we ready to go?"

Comprehension dawned on the group's faces and they all nodded happily. Today was going to be fun. I mean, how dangerous can kayaking be? Especially when they specifically didn't invite Loki this time.