Beta: Thank you Doccy, Mitchy, Dragonfly and Sabaceanbabe!
Feedback: Is always appreciated, thank you so much everyone who's taken the time to comment so far!
Note: Sorry for the delay! The next, and final chapter, is very nearly finished so should be a long much sooner.

"Jesus, finally. Captain Rogers? It's Fra-

"I - no, ma'am. I have the wrong number.

"No, ma'am, I wasn't trying to reach another florist. No - no I do not want to consider sending azaleas to my mother. No.

"Thank you. You have a great day too."

In his darker moments, Agent Franklin wondered if Hydra was hiring.

-o-

"'And what did you do on your vacation, Agent Barton?'" Clint leaned forward on the rail: the only thing separating interested visitors from a three-quarter mile drop. "Well, Your Honor, I saw a hole. In my defense, it was really big."

Jane propped herself next to him and looked down (and down, and down) the terraced sides of the Bingham Canyon Mine. The bottom was a haze of rising dust and dotted figures moving from digger to digger.

She picked idly at the weatherworn wood under her hand. "My mom used to say it was so big, you could see it from space."

Off his enquiring expression, she went on. "From low Earth orbit, maybe - or with magnification. With magnification, anything's visible from space." She shielded her eyes against the sun and smiled up for the 'camera'.

Clint reflexively tucked his head against his chest. "I don't think they're getting my best side."

"They probably aren't getting you at all - StarkTech has us covered, twenty-four seven and what Tony doesn't want them to see..." Jane hesitated, considering the implications with her mouth half-open and a hand paused mid-gesture.

"Less reassuring when you say it out loud, huh? Just hope he never gets bored enough to take over the world." Clint smiled crookedly. "Officially."

"No, it's fine. I mean - checks and balances, right?"

"Sure, except he's going out with the check and talked most of the balances into looking at a really big hole, so I don't love our chances."

"If our robot overlords are as polite as Jarvis, that's okay." Jane shrugged philosophically. "It's the accent."

"I'll remind you of this conversation when we're batteries."

"Tony would never turn the human race into batteries; he's gone green now. Although technically we are a renewable resource." She grinned brightly. "So we should probably keep him distracted, just to be sure."

"I'm pretty sure defensive road trips don't exist. Anywhere."

"Batteries."

"Next stop, House of Mystery, medals and the thanks of a grateful nation." Clint straightened and glanced around. "Where's Thor?"

"He's-" Jane turned; there was a complete absence of what Darcy had labelled, 'it's complicated' standing next to the Visitor Center where she'd left him.

She turned back. "Okay, where's Thor?"

Clint focussed unblinkingly on the bottom of the canyon and then nodded towards the largest group. "He's with Doctor Selvig, on the tour." He watched for a few seconds longer. "Huh."

Jane squinted and could just about make out moving figures at this distance; Clint was probably counting their freckles. "What's he doing?"

"I think … yeah, he just challenged mining equipment to single combat."

"Crap."

"It's okay." Clint's mouth curved in a half-smile. "He's winning."

"Crap."

-o-

In the Visitor Center, Bruce finished reading the welcome board and wandered further on. He found Tony standing in front of the glossy prints on the 'Memories of Bingham Canyon' wall with a glazed, slightly panicked expression that suggested he was trying to work out why.

Bruce guessed the escape from reality wasn't going as well as Tony would have liked. It happened. He could say that with more than a little authority.

With anyone else, Bruce would have asked if they wanted to talk about it, but Tony wasn't going to talk. He'd invented an entire vacation and absconded with half the Initiative to avoid talking. That really only left playing along.

Which, Bruce guiltily had to admit, worked for him - if Tony did decide to say something, Bruce had no idea what he'd even say back. He'd barely even met-

"So you know who they'll send next, right?" Tony's hunted expression had smoothed into a smirk. "Cranklin."

"You don't think Agent Romanov is more likely?"

Tony shrugged. "Maybe. And that's fine. She completely betrayed my trust, but I can be the bigger man. Admittedly, that's only because she's a woman."

Bruce glanced up, forehead furrowed with, he felt, some valid concerns. "I don't know Natasha well, but I can't see her being won over by the promise of roadside attractions. And I use the description loosely."

"Please, you're dying to see the Vortex - I saw you fondling that slide rule. Anyway, she loves me."

"She hides it … very well."

"Super spy: it's her job. When she gets here, I should let her down easy. Or, I could see if Pepper's interested in-" Tony squared his shoulders, grimly stoic. "Or not."

"When she gets here?" Bruce grinned. "Did Tony Stark just acknowledge that his anti-surveillance tech could have flaws?"

"Absolutely not. But she's keeping tabs on Barton somehow - credit me with a little intelligence." Stark turned and started towards the diggers' info-wall. "Actually, credit me with a lot of intelligence. All of it."

Bruce followed in his wake. "I do - I just didn't realize you'd noticed other people existed. Good for you."

"Objection." Tony raised a hand. "When was the last time you had more than ten minutes of conversation with anyone who isn't me?"

Point. Bruce acknowledged it with a nod. "Mockery retracted, if not the sentiment."

"I notice the people worth noticing - especially the ones who clearly adore me, or the ones who may just be waiting for five minutes without witnesses - hey, so, I was thinking." Tony pulled out his tablet and tapped twice. "We're near Vegas. Kind of near. Nearish. Relatively speaking. Did you know they have an Atomic Testing Museum?"

"And, I'm given to understand, strippers," Bruce said evenly.

"I doubt it - unless museums have gotten a lot more entertaining. Not interested? Understandable. Okay, Las Vegas: proud home of the world's largest gold nugget."

"And strip teasers. And gambling," Steve said as he rounded the corner of the refinery exhibition with Darcy.

"They prefer 'exotic dancers.'" Tony paused his scrolling and blinked. "Headless Lenin? What the hell is-"

"Hey, can I play?" Darcy looked up, frowned in concentration and then ticked her fingers as she went along. "I went on a road trip and I saw atomic testing, strippers, a gold nugget, gambling, Headless Lenin and Joe Manganiello. In a speedo."

Tony blinked again. "See, now that's completely derailed my entire thought process. Do you have any idea how much my entire thought process is worth?"

"You're welcome." Darcy nodded at Bruce and Steve. "I accept thanks in the form of all major ice-creams, or not having to caddy for Jane and Bruce tomorrow when they break the House of Mystery and make small children cry."

The door of the Center swung open, revealing Jane and a small gaggle of overly excited, chattering tourists. She reached back into the crowd and dragged Thor and Erik away from their admirers; they trailed after her with dually satisfied, if suspiciously dusty, expressions.

"We're discussing our next destination," Steve greeted them. "Tony is voting for Las Vegas, absolutely everyone else - including unborn generations - is still voting Oregon."

Jane shook her head. "I don't care where we go, but if we don't find a laundromat soon, I'm hijacking the van. I have a thunder god and I'm not afraid to use him."

Thor nodded sincerely as he tried to shake the worst of the dirt out of his hair. "She isn't. And, nor I - go where you will."

Tony looked mystified. "Why do we need a laundromat?"

Jane looked back, equally confused. "How have you been cleaning your clothes?"

"I haven't; I buy new ones whenever we hit a gift shop."

"Huh." Darcy tucked a hand around her waist and thoughtfully tapped her chin with a single finger. "That does explain the t-shirts."

"And the socks," Jane agreed.

"And that hat," Steve said, sounding relieved.

Erik shook his head and spoke in a measured tone. "No, I don't think anything explains the-"

"And that hat."

-o-

The RV Park on the outskirts of Elko wasn't particularly impressive, but it was somewhere to stop for the night and there was a fair right next-door, which Tony claimed was serendipitous.

And - most importantly - it had a laundromat.

Unfortunately, it was out of service.

Jane studied the sign on the door with narrowed eyes. "Stark, where's your toolkit?"

-o-

Some time after midnight, Tony left Bruce and Jane haggling over washer-drier co-efficiency and struck out for the small, but perfectly appointed, entertainment block and the mercy of its bar.

It was still open; Tony could see Thor and Darcy seated at a table by the window, talking animatedly and, behind them, Rogers attempting to circumnavigate a crowd of drunks, all a head shorter than he was.

Tony had a second to enjoy the view, and deal with the mild disappointment of Captain America failing to accidentally flatten any unsuspecting citizens, before he spotted Barton heading - sneaking - out the door and towards the deserted fairground.

It wasn't a secret that Barton usually disappeared for a few hours at night - actually, it was the subject of Darcy's RV pool - but it was the first time Tony had seen him go.

Barton slipped between two stalls; Tony followed at a careful distance.

When they'd visited the fair earlier, Thor had eaten his own weight in deep-fried everything, Darcy had conned Barton into winning her a small army of plush elephants and the undying hatred of the man running the rifles and Rogers had looked … wistful.

Ducking under a low-hanging goldfish, Tony shied away from that thought. He was already doing his part to acclimatize the golden boy to the 21st century: he didn't have anything to feel bad about.

He didn't. Not his problem. Not his responsibility.

So he really wished that he didn't know what Rogers had been doing before he'd gate-crashed. Or at least that more of the men Rogers had been visiting weren't waiting for him in graveyards.

Or that Tony had known Rogers had been visiting at all.

Howard Stark had kept records on Rogers' unit; he'd made sure their pension checks were a little fatter than they could have been, the mortgage payments a little kinder. Tony had seen no reason not to continue the tradition and Jarvis could have had their information in Rogers' hands in a matter of minutes.

Uncomfortably, it occurred to him that maybe Rogers was looking for something more than files on a flash drive.

And, really, Tony just wasn't equipped to care about this kind of thing - or anything, actually - and Fury should have known that.

A small inner voice, which sounded horrifyingly similar to Banner, reminded Tony that the reason he hadn't been invited into the Initiative was exactly because Fury did know that.

He'd slapped the freaking assessment in Tony's face.

Of course, Tony had totally saved everyone's collective asses anyway, so Fury was massively wrong.

Or massively, magnificently devious.

No. No way.

Right?

Right.

Crouched in the shadows to avoid the few people patrolling the grounds, Tony huffed with amusement at himself and exasperation with absolutely everything else.

He let the last of the foot-traffic go by and, still bent low, scurried towards the hulking shape of the Ferris wheel. The lights were out, but the ticket booth next to it was dully lit and Barton stood in the illumination, talking to someone who was barely more than a slim outline in the darkness.

The second person stiffened and then stepped back into the shadows; Barton turned, eyebrow raised.

Busted.

Barton stood, arms comfortably crossed, as Tony wandered closer. "Made a perpetual washing machine yet?"

Tony peered around him. "Where is she?"

It was immediately clear who did the undercover work in the Barton-Romanov partnership - Barton was a horrible liar. "She, who?"

Just. Just horrible.

"Your partner in crime." Tony lifted himself on his toes, trying to see over Barton's head; still nothing.

"I think you mean, 'partner in legal, government-sanctioned action.'"

"I'm almost certain I don't." Tony raised his voice. "Romanov! Come in from the cold, we have hamburgers and the good episodes of the Simpsons."

A ridiculously hot Russian spy failed to materialize. In fairness, if it were that easy, Tony doubted that the Cold War would have been much of an issue.

"I'm not enough secret agent for you?" Barton held a wounded hand over his heart. "I'm hurt."

"You were the carrot and Romanov's the stick - don't even try and deny it." Tony couldn't help noticing that Barton didn't look even slightly inclined to try. "How long has she been following us?"

"Roughly?" Barton's lips moved as he made some rapid calculations. "Since Missouri?"

Tony stared.

The smile was there, then gone: one more shadow. "Partner in government-sanctioned babysitting?"

"Okay, why is she following us? There's room in the RV. Especially when you keep sleeping on the roof."

"Does spending time in an RV with a bunch of unwashed tourists seem like Tasha's idea of a good time to you?" Barton didn't wait for the obvious reply, choosing to answer the obvious question instead. "And, no, she hasn't been narking on you - us. She even left her cell in the rental."

"I'm confused. Isn't it her job to glare at me?"

"No." Barton shrugged. "But maybe if you asked nicely?"

Tony had a sudden, appalled, epiphany. "Wait! You've been sneaking out to see Romanov? We thought you were off playing with your bows and arrows. Or that diner waitress with the - either way, I've lost a bet. To Captain America. Do you have any idea how that feels?"

Barton shook his head, expression sober, but eyes glittering with repressed amusement. "Is it anything like when he beat you at pool?"

"Exactly like that." Tony scowled. "Thank you so much for the reminder."

"Hey, if you'd let me play…"

"Then I'd still have lost."

"You'd feel a lot better about it, though."

"That's actually true." Tony crossed his arms. "And not the point. Tell Romanov that I expect her to be an active participant: she doesn't get to spy on the road trip without being part of the road trip.

"It's like Fight Club, without the gratuitous v- … it's exactly like Fight Club."

-o-

Once Tony had grumbled his way back towards the lights of a now gently humming laundromat, Natasha came out from the cover of the Ferris wheel.

"This isn't worst plan you've ever had," she admitted, grudgingly, as she leaned against the ticket-booth.

"Me?" Clint shook his head in flat denial and settled himself next to her, shoulder-to-shoulder. "The Colonel decided we didn't look busy, I was an innocent bystander."

"You were in his ceiling."

"It's roomy - I recommend it for all your surveillance needs."

She shot him a flatly unimpressed look. "I'll stay with the undercover details, thank you."

"What kind of person prefers ambassadorial parties to vents?" He edged a little closer, closing the thin gap between them with a nudge of his shoulder; Natasha raised an eyebrow. "I'm cold," he complained.

"It's the middle of June: it's not cold."

"Damn Ruskies."

She relented with a smirk, wrapped his hands in hers and tried to ignore the deafening absence of a voice in their ears, dryly asking for a sit rep, if they could possibly spare the time.

"It's hardly my fault you have the constitution of a sickly child," she said, to drown out the silence. "Would you like a blankie?"

"Hey, who wouldn't?"

She looked slowly around the fair. "Is it like being home?"

"No," he said, and then muttered something under his breath that she doubted she was meant to catch; she squeezed his hand before she let it go.

After a moment, she straightened and started towards ranks of gaming stalls. "Come on, you can win me a giraffe."

He drew even with her stride after a few steps. "They closed. And you can win your own giraffe."

"Your point?"

"Yes, ma'am. One giraffe, coming right up."

-o-

"A nuclear physicist, an astrophysicist and an electrical engineer walk into a laundromat." Fury steepled his fingers and, elbows on desk, leaned forward in his chair and glared up at Agent Franklin.

"Go ahead," he went on in a tone not entirely unlikeDirty Harry asking Punk 2 just how lucky he felt. "Give me the punch line."

Franklin winced. "Uhm."

"Uhm?" Fury narrowed his eye. "Is that, 'uhm, this is news to me, Colonel Fury' or 'uhm, we were really hoping you wouldn't catch the feeds this morning, Colonel Fury?' Because, I can tell you now that neither answer is going to win you friends here."

"'Uhm, I wonder if you've seen the latest Intel, Colonel Fury?'" Franklin unbent from attention just enough to drop the folder on the desk.

"I have, Agent Franklin." Fury flipped the folder open. "I have."