"Disneyland!?" Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton asked in unison, not sure if what they just heard was correct.
Tony Stark had just told everyone about his plans to take everyone to Disneyland for the heck of it. It was a spontaneous decision. In fact, he just arranged the trip the night before, after drunkenly switching through channels and stopping on the Disney channel during a marathon of the 'Toy Story' movie trilogy.
"Yep." Tony said. "I got the tickets and everything."
"What's Disneyland?" Steve Rogers asked, having not been around when it was being built.
"Oh yeah, you were already a Capsicle by the time it was built." Tony laughed. "It's a theme park. You know; rides, food, games, rollercoasters, people dressed up as oversized anthropomorphic animals. Trust me. You'll love it."
"I don't think putting me on a rollercoaster would be such a great idea…" Bruce Banner said; a bit uneasy about the possibility of turning into 'The Hulk' at the park that had been deemed 'The happiest place on Earth'.
"Nobody said you have to go on the rollercoasters." Tony shrugged. "Just ride 'It's a Small World' or something."
"What is a rollercoaster?" Thor asked.
"I'll explain on the way there. Trust me, Point Break. You'd love 'em!" Tony gave Thor a reassuring pat on the back before speaking to the whole group. "I bought VIP passes that are good for the whole day, from the time the park opens to the time that it closes; and Fast-Passes are included."
"How many passes did you buy exactly?" Natasha asked.
"One for each of us," Tony answered, taking the 7 plastic passes out of his pocket and holding them up; each pass was attached to a lanyard that was embroidered with colorful Mickey heads, "and one for Fury if he wants to tag along."
Nick Fury, who was walking about the room, overheard Tony as he was walking past Tony and the others.
"No." Fury said before continuing to walk past Tony.
"Well, that answers that question…" Tony muttered before turning towards Maria Hill who was working on a nearby computer.
"Don't even think about it." Maria said before Tony even got a word out; not even looking away from her computer.
"Okay then…" Tony said slowly then turned to Phil Coulson who was stand behind the group and had just finished speaking with a couple other agents. "Agent, you wanna tag along?"
"I'd love to, but I've got some debriefing to do." Phil said with an apologetic smile. "Sorry guys."
"Bummer." Tony said, slightly frowning. "We'll make sure to bring you back somethin' nice, 'kay?"
Phil smiled and walked away.
"Well now what?" Tony turned back to the group.
"Bring Pepper." Bruce said as he absentmindedly took off his glasses and began cleaning them with the bottom of his shirt then held them up to his eyes to check to see if whatever smudge or speck was gone before putting them back on.
"I already asked her and two of her friends last night." Tony shook his head. "They said they didn't wanna go; something about a Girl's Night Out. They can be real sticks in the mud."
A blonde scientist and a brunette agent walked by the group, laughing casually. Tony smirked, an idea forming in his head. He walked up behind the two.
"Ladies." Tony said seductively.
The blonde scientist was startled and jumped a bit at the sound of his voice. She turned around quickly and gave him a death glare. The brunette agent sighed in annoyance.
"What is it?" The brunette asked, rolling her eyes as she turned to face Tony.
"I just happen to have an extra day pass for Disneyland. Would one of you two want to tag along with me and the group?" Tony asked.
The girls exchanged glances then looked at Tony suspiciously.
"So, which one of you will it be?" Tony asked.
The girls crossed their arms and Tony shifted his focus to the brunette agent.
"Maggie?"
"Not interested." Maggie said flatly.
Tony shifted his gaze from Maggie to the blonde Scientist.
"Suzy?"
"I'm busy!" Suzy snapped.
And with that, the two walked away, clearly annoyed with Tony.
"It was worth a shot." Tony shrugged, turning back to the group; a couple of them face-palmed at Tony's failed attempt. "Anybody else?"
"I could bring my brother." Thor suggested.
"You want to bring Loki!?" Bruce asked.
"Oh no! No way is Reindeer Games coming with us!" Tony objected.
"He'd probably tear apart the park!" Clint added.
"Clint's right." Natasha agreed. "Loki is extremely dangerous and we'd not only be endangering the park itself, but all the families who are visiting the park too."
"What if I swear to you that he will behave himself?" Thor pleaded.
"And how exactly will you get Loki to behave?" Steve asked.
"I have my ways." Thor said simply.
Tony opened his mouth to ask, but then just let out a frustrated sigh, realizing that he wouldn't be getting a straight answer from Thor anyway.
"Alright. You can bring Loki." Tony said. "But if he misbehaves even once, then both you and Reindeer Games are outa here! Got it?"
"You have my word." Thor said with a smile.
The next day everybody woke up early, got on one of Tony's private jets, and flew to California. Loki glared at everyone begrudgingly for the whole flight; it was clear that he wasn't happy with being dragged along. He wasn't complaining though, which was a relief to the Avengers.
"He better not be any trouble." Tony warned Thor.
"I gave you my word." Thor reminded Tony.
Once they were at Disneyland they went through security and such (bag searches and all that); of course Tony had made everyone leave any weapons on the plane. Then they scanned their passes at the turnstiles and walked in. Instantly their senses were met with colors, music, and a giant Mickey Mouse head constructed out of hedges and flowers.
Steve didn't know what to think of what he was seeing and Loki attempted to hide his confusion with a look of disgust, but Thor's eyes instantly lit up at the sight of so many strange new Midgardian things.
Natasha had grabbed a map on the way in and began looking at it.
"This place is pretty big." Natasha said as she scanned over the many section of the park on the map. "It'll be easy to lose each other is we're not careful. So we should all stick together and if anyone needs to split off from the group for any reason then we'll set up an organized buddy system that-"
Natasha looked up from the map only to see that only two people were still standing with her; Clint who was looking over her shoulder at the map, and Steve who was still staring ahead as if he went into some form of future-shock. Natasha looked around at the crowds of people walking by them.
"Where did-" Before Natasha could finish her question, she spotted Tony running of with Bruce being pulled along behind him and Thor tugging Loki in the opposite direction. She was about to call for them to come back, but at that instant a large high school orchestra fieldtrip group walked through the gates with their instruments.
One small female student without an instrument spotted Steve and began dragging a rather tall female student to a spot where she could more easily point him out, which just happened to obstruct Natasha's view even more.
"Well, so much for sticking together…"She sighed.
Meanwhile, Thor dragged Loki down Main Street U.S.A. and then down one of the alleyways that branched out to Fantasyland. He was already eager to get on his first rollercoaster. He stopped for a bit and scanned the area around him; there were three rides in immediate view. There was the teacup ride, the Alice in Wonderland ride, and the Matterhorn.
The Matterhorn caught Thor's attention immediately and he dragged Loki off to the start of the line. Right afterwards, four girls lined up behind them.
"The wait time says 45 minutes!" One of the girls whined.
"You guys don't have to ride with us." One girl said, sounding annoyed. "Just don't wander off."
"We'll just be in the gift shop." Another girl said.
"Alright. When you're done, wait outside until we get off the ride."
Two of the girls ran off.
Loki looked behind him to see who was making all the noise and saw a tall girl and a shorter girl both facing the other direction, watching the other two leave.
"Your friends better not get lost or I'm gonna-" The shorter girl turned around and stopped speaking mid-sentence when she made eye contact with Loki.
Loki turned back around, not wanting to be dragged into socializing with mortals.
"Dude…Jana…" Loki heard the short girl whispering.
"What!?" Jana snapped.
"Look at the guys right in front of us…" The short girl whispered.
Behind Thor and Loki, the two girls continued to whisper to each other.
Meanwhile, Tony and Bruce had taken the same path as Thor and Loki had earlier but instead of stopping at the Matterhorn, Tony lead Bruce all the way to the back of Fantasyland to the 'It's a Small World' ride.
Bruce looked skeptically at the giant smiling clock on the front of the ride. Tony noticed Bruce's reaction and chuckled.
"Yeah. I know how it looks." Tony said with a smirk. "But you gotta ride it at least once."
Tony looked over at the ride's wait time; 30 minutes.
"I'm going to check the other ride's wait times. Wait here." Tony said before wandering off.
Back with Thor and Loki, they had just finished riding the Matterhorn on which the two girls had sat in the back of the same bobsled as them.
They were now walking out of the ride's exit and the two girls behind them had stopped whispering and were now singing loudly to the instrumental Disney music that was playing faintly from some speakers.
Loki was obviously getting annoyed at this and Thor noticed that.
"Loki, no." Thor said sternly to Loki.
Suddenly a girl with short curly blonde hair dashed past them to the two girls.
"Julie! Jana! I lost Oorja!"
"Wiley!" Jana groaned in annoyance.
Julie began panicking.
"Oh no no no no no! I'm gonna get in soooooo much trouble!" She began pacing. "Do you at least have an idea of where she went?"
"No!" Wiley said. "We were waiting for you guys and when I turned to talk to her, she was gone!"
Thor and Loki turned around a watched the drama unfold between the three girls.
Jana and Wiley began arguing loudly, and Julie began rummaging through her backpack while mumbling to herself in a panicked tone.
"This always happens to me! Why me!? My gosh, their music teacher is gonna shoot me!" She clearly wasn't finding what she was looking for. "Of course I left my gosh darn phone in the gosh darn hotel! I'm such an idiot!"
"That wouldn't have helped anyway." Wiley said. "Oorja left her stuff with me."
"That's it! I'm dead!" Julie threw up her hands in defeat. Thor noticed that the front of her shirt read 'Chaperone'.
"I can assist you with finding your friend." Thor volunteered suddenly.
"Oh my gosh! Thank you!" Julie said in relief.
It was decided that Thor would go with Jana and Wiley to look and Loki would wait with Julie in front of the shop where Oorja ran off.
Loki clearly didn't want to help anyone.
Tony eventually made his way to the Dumbo ride. He checked the wait time; only 10 minutes. Tony figured that he had time to kill, so he got in line right behind an Indian girl who, from what the back of her shirt read, was a high school orchestra student.
Meanwhile, Bruce was finally boarding a boat on the 'It's a Small World' ride. He wondered why Tony wasn't back yet, but he would ride around once before he started worrying. After all, how long could this ride be?
"Oorja!" Jana called.
"Oorja! Get yo' butt back over here right now!" Wiley called.
Thor followed the two girls while looking around for anyone who matched the description they had given of their friend.
They wandered all the way to the Dumbo ride, where they finally spotted Oorja. She was riding one of the elephants and Tony was riding the one behind her.
"OORJA!" Jana called up to Oorja.
"HEY GUYS!" Oorja yelled down at Wiley and Jana, waving.
"No! Bad Oorja! Bad!" Wiley scolded. "Get off the elephant!"
"Hey guys! Check out who's behind me!" Oorja called.
Tony waved from his elephant.
Jana and Wiley stared wide-eyed at Tony.
"Hey! Thor!"
Thor turned around and saw Natasha, Clint, and Steve running up to him. Thor smiled and waved.
Jana and Wiley turned around to see what was going on, and spotted Steve. They stared with their mouths agape.
"We've been looking ev-" Natasha noticed that Loki wasn't with Thor and instead two of the orchestra kids were. "Who are they?"
"I was helping these two young maidens find their missing friend." Thor replied.
"Okay…and where's Loki?" Natasha asked suspiciously.
"He is with the chaperone of these two." Thor answered.
"My sister." Jana added; her eyes still fixed on Steve.
"Really? She's your sister?" Thor asked. "Hm, there is not much resemblance between you two. She's quite small."
"She's eighteen." Wiley said.
"Wait. You left Loki with an eighteen year old girl!?" Steve asked.
"WHAT!?" Tony had exited the ride and overheard Steve. "You left Loki ALONE!?"
Oorja exited the ride and joined her friends.
"Where did you leave him?" Clint asked Thor.
"Right over there." Thor pointed in the direction of the shop where they were left to wait.
Natasha, Clint, Tony, and Steve all exchanged glances before dashing off in the direction of the shop. Thor and the three girls followed.
During this, Bruce was stuck on a tiny boat in the middle of the 'It's a Small World' ride. The ride had been stopping constantly and now it had been completely stalled for the last 5 minutes with that annoying song playing over, and over, and over in a foreign language.
When the shop came into view, Loki and Julie were nowhere in sight.
"Are you sure this is the right shop?" Steve asked.
"This is it…" Wiley replied.
"Maybe they went inside." Oorja suggested.
"I don't think Loki would be shopping with an eighteen-year-old girl." Clint said.
"We need to find them!" Natasha said urgently. "Stay together and follow me!"
They searched every part of the park, including Tom Sawyer's Island; no sight of Loki or Julie.
So, being out of ideas and feeling defeated, they went back to the shop where they started; and there, sitting on the bench right in front of the shop, were Loki and Julie, looking very bored. Julie was doodling on a sketchbook with a multi-colored 'Beauty and the Beast' pen and Loki was examining the various Disney villain pins on the lanyard that Julie had taken off of her neck.
"Wow! That took a while!" Julie exclaimed when she noticed Jana and everyone else. "Oh, so you found Oorja…and some other people…"
"Where were you!?" Jana asked.
"We've been here the whole time." Julie replied.
"Then why was nobody out here when we came here the first time!?"
"Did you even check inside the shop? 'Cause that's probably where we were!" Julie snapped as she closed her sketchbook. "We were bored as all living heck out here!"
Her and Loki got up from the bench.
"See what I told you?" She said to Loki as he handed her back her lanyard. "I swear, it's every single time. Oh! I almost forgot!" Julie opened her sketchbook, tore out a page, folded it up, and handed it to Loki who put it in his pocket.
"Nice talkin' to you." Julie said to Loki as she walked over to Jana.
"What was that?" Jana asked.
"What was what?" Julie asked.
"What did you give him!?"
"Just some contact info."
"Why would you do that!?"
"Because rockets, now shut up."
Everyone stared at Julie, confused by her sentence.
"Hey, we should go on Space Mountain. C'mon." Julie and the three orchestra student began walking away. Julie turned around and called back to Thor and the others. "Thanks for helping us!"
Once the four girls were out of sight, Natasha realized that something was missing.
"Tony? Where's Bruce?" Natasha asked.
"Son of a-" Tony ran off towards the 'It's a Small World' ride with the others following closely behind him.
When they reached the ride, Bruce was finally exiting it. When he spotted Tony and the others, he immediately approached them.
"Three hours…" Bruce said with a tired look on his face. "Three hours of listening to the same song over and over in different languages…"
"Yeah, sorry about that…" Tony laughed awkwardly. "It's a long story. You see-"
"I don't care." Bruce interrupted. "Just get me away from this ride."
The rest of the day was pretty normal. They went on some rides, ate some food, bought some stuff, and once in a while they'd see those four girls who were, thankfully, staying in a group now. After a while, everyone went to a restaurant that had a good view of the Cinderella Castle to have dinner. At this time, Tony snuck away from the group and came back with a bag of hats from a nearby gift shop.
"Alright guys! Picture time! Grab a hat!" Tony said as he held out the bag of hats.
Natasha grabbed a cowboy hat, Clint grabbed Winnie the Pooh ears, Bruce grabbed some sort of knit animal hat that looked like a frog, and Thor was too busy finishing off Loki's food which Loki barely touched, so Tony put a pair of Minnie Mouse ears on Thor and Mickey Mouse ears on Loki. Steve refused to wear the last hat because Tony wasn't going to wear a hat.
Then Tony handed his camera to a waiter and grouped everyone together in front of the view of the castle.
After the picture they went on a few more rides, got stuck behind a parade, and then watched the fireworks before finally leaving the park.
The next day when Phil Coulson went to his locker, he found the picture that the group had taken at Disneyland; written on it was:
To Phil
Steve Rogers