The Avengers' next diplomatic mission was to Tokyo. For some reason, they took Tony again.
"Maid cafés!" he shouted, unprompted, in the middle of their red-eye flight.
"Maid cafés!" someone responded from coach.
Vision turned off his ability to hear, which was apparently a thing he could do. Steve wished for his old deafness, buried his face further in Bucky's hair, and went back to sleep.
The someone in coach turned out to be Deadpool, who was Facebook friends with Spiderman and had apparently decided that Peter's requisite vacation post constituted an invitation. Deadpool had been allowed to carry his katanas on board the plane, because "they're cultural artifacts, and Beatrix got to do it in Kill Bill," and no one was brave enough to argue with him. Steve spent the rest of the (eleven-hour) flight, apologizing to the stewardesses- "Flight attendants, Steve."
The Avengers arrived at Narita airport bright and early. Maria had decided to limit their stay to Tokyo because no one thought it would be a good idea to send Captain America to Hiroshima or Nagasaki even if though that had been after his time. He decided not to mention the firebombing raids. Everyone seemed to forget that they did even more damage than the atomic bombs, and that had been after his time too.
It turned out to be a good thing they took Tony, because he and Natasha were the only one who spoke Japanese (and Natasha kept "forgetting" she spoke it around politicians).
Natasha called Tony a, "Weeaboo." He replied with, "Hentai," to which Natasha countered, "Shonen ai?" prompting Tony to rejoin with, "Shojo ai; also, bukake," at which point Prime Minister Shinzō Abe excused himself from the room.
Steve gave a jaunty wave and said, "Sayonara," which was the only word he knew.
That night, they spent exactly ten minutes at a capsule hotel before Bucky flipped his shit and also a table.
Tony found an all-night manga café, where they made last minute reservations at Toco in Iriya. Toco was a traditional guest house, with sliding doors, a koi pond, and the oldest Fujizuka in Tokyo. Fujizukas were miniature mount Fujis, manmade so the infirm who couldn't make it up the real mountain had a place to pray. Steve thought that was nice.
Toco also had late check-in hours.
They were supposed to do a public meet-and-greet outside the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku, but no one showed up. It turned out a Detective Conan themed café had just opened down the street. The Avengers decided to check it out, despite no one except Tony knowing what a "Detective Conan" was. ("Shojo ai?" Natasha questioned, and Tony said, "Femfic," which didn't sound particularly Japanese to Steve, but the only word he knew was "sayonara.")
They had to wait in line for twenty minutes. ("I'm rich," said Tony. "I don't wait this long to poop." There were no follow up questions.) They couldn't order, because Tony's Japanese was limited to political discourse, so the nice waitresses tried to serve them the café's signature dish. It turned out to be APTX4869 Curry: red and white rice shaped like a two-toned capsule pill. Half the Avengers lost their appetites. Steve was concerned, because based on Tony and Natasha's conversation, he assumed the themed café was somehow political in nature. Bucky refused to touch it with "a ten-foot chopstick."
They had better luck with other themed cafés, which included:
An Owl Café where Sam and Clint staged a protest because the owls were being mistreated. (It was a sit-in protest and they ate a lot of cake, so it might have been a little antithetical to their cause.) A horror themed café that Vision enjoyed way too much. A toilet-themed café that Tony enjoyed way too much. (There were still no follow up questions). A Moomin themed café that Thor enjoyed exactly the right amount. They filled their phones taking pictures of the Norse god drinking tea with a giant plushie Moomin, pinky up. ("I think my ovaries just exploded," said Deadpool.)
They also visited several temples and shrines, including one North of Ueno which had a memorial to insect who had given their lives to science. Scott took a moment.
At the Senso-ji temple in Asakusa they found a store selling plastic restaurant food replicas, including a pepperoni pizza cowboy hat. Clint took a moment.
Steve and Bucky's favorite party of Tokyo were the Daiso dollar stores. Steve may or may not have panicked over the prices before Sam sat him down and explained yen.
"Stevie, they have dinnerware for a dollar. Do you know the last time I saw dinnerware for a dollar?"
"Was it the last time someone used the word 'dinnerware'?" asked Tony.
They rounded off their trip with karaoke. Deadpool gave Bucky his katanas to hold while he changed into a maid outfit, which he seemed surprisingly comfortable in. Peter blushed and muttered something about a "Hit Monkey." There were a lot of follow up questions.
Clint and Sam did a duet of Lynyrd Skynyrd. (They still weren't over the owls.) Deadpool did a Céline Dion power ballad called Ashes, which made everyone tear up. (No one was over Thanos.) Tony did Black Sabbath. (Tony always did Black Sabbath.)
Bucky seemed unsurprisingly comfortable with the katanas, so no one asked him to participate. Steve wasn't allowed to participate, because, "There's a reason you didn't have a singing part in Man With a Plan, Stevie." He and Bucky spent the evening drinking Asgardian mead out of 3.4 oz bottles and watching the performances of the other Avengers.
"Still disappointed we didn't make it to a maid café, Tony?" Steve had finally gotten drunk enough to ask someone what a maid café was.
"Eh." Tony shrugged. "Next trip."
"Weeaboo," said Natasha.
