Laynie was never a patient girl, but normally she was a smart one. Not on Halloween though. Not sitting in the dark all alone after walking through a haunted house. Nope.
Somehow, her candy-polluted mind deducted it would be far less scary to go back inside the haunted house alone than wait for someone else to come out. Somehow it made sense at the time.
As soon as she stepped foot in the first room, she regretted it.
The second a zombie lunged out of the bushes, she let out the most deafening scream. She recoiled so harshly that her yarn wig fell off her head. She grabbed it up quickly and ran.
"Tony!" she shouted. A chill gripped her, and she heard fake snow crunch beneath her feet. "Crap."
Frostbitten zombies came at her from all sides. She darted out of that room as quickly as she could without wiping out in the white powder coating the floor. The next room was easy, and the jail was almost fun. She stopped and asked the prisoner Tony had spoken with if he had passed, and thankfully he said he had.
"Thank you sir," Laynie said with a nod.
"Good luck finding your friend!" he called after her.
Laynie tried to go slowly through the house, searching for green tights, a puffy pirate shirt or a vampire's cape. She saw none of those even once she was in the clown room.
She shuffled through the stained and squished plastic balls carefully, trying to get through without gaining the unwanted attention of the clowns. Tony was nowhere in sight, nor were Clint and Carter.
As the next group noisily entered the ball pit, Laynie winced. It was all over.
The clowns came out of the walls shouting and grabbing. Her worst nightmare was hobbling toward her with a very real-looking chainsaw. Since when did circus acts include chainsaws anyway?
Laynie, needless to say, ran. Every second she regretted her decision more and more. She was beginning to wonder how much trouble wandering off would get her into.
Eventually Laynie made it to the room known as the slaughterhouse, and she knew she was nearing the end of the house again.
I've gone through almost the entire house and still haven't found anybody. She thought as she entered.
Her growing frustration caused her not to pay as much attention as she should have and she was caught off guard by the bloody butcher.
She screamed loudly when he swung his cleaver at her and backed into one of the fake pigs hanging from the ceiling.
Laynie ran from the burly man and ended bumping into somebody as she left the room.
She groaned slightly and looked up. She was delighted when she saw a long black and red cape, just like Tony's.
"Tony!" she shouted over all the noise.
The vampire turned around and snarled at her. It wasn't Tony.
She jumped back with a cry, right into another person.
"Hey! There you are. I thought that guy was me too, but then I remembered that I'm me, so he can't be. Who's idea was it for me to be a vampire anyway?"
Laynie jumped and turned into a hug. Being alone in the house was scarier than she anticipated, and what she really needed was a hug from her dad. "Oh my gosh I got tired of waiting so I came in alone and I couldn't find any of you!" She grunted into Tony's silk vampire shirt. "Never again."
Tony laughed and hugged her back. "Hey. Clint found Carter, but when I went out he was gone, because he came in to look for us. So he found me halfway through and is taking Carter out, so now all we have to do is go the rest of the way through."
Laynie nodded, and put her arm through the crook of Tony's. They went through the rest of the house together, screaming and laughing just like the first time.
On the outside, they found Clint and Carter sitting on the curb, the latter looking a little worse for wear.
"Finally!" Carter exclaimed as they walked toward her and Clint. She looked up at Tony tiredly. "Can we please go home now?"
He reached down and quickly ruffled her hair before she began swatting at him. He had a good laugh about it, then nodded. "Yeah, let's go home."
Carter huffed, "I'm never letting you people talk me into something like this ever again."
A while later they finally returned to Stark Tower. When they entered the living room they were greeted by Bruce and Pepper.
"How was it?" Bruce asked with a smile.
Carter narrowed her eyes. "I am never celebrating Halloween again." She answered, while being pulled into a hug from Bruce.
"That bad?" Pepper asked with a frown, looking at Tony expectantly.
"Well, I think Carter's being kinda melodramatic." Tony replied.
"I got lost in the haunted house! And you guys didn't even notice until after you had gone all the way through." Carter said with a slight glare pointed at Tony. "I'm not being melodramatic."
Tony pointed at Clint. "Not my fault."
Laynie waved a hand. "It wasn't that bad. Don't let her fool you, it wasn't even scary!"
It was Clint's turn to deny a statement. "It was pretty terrifying."
"Laynie, I think we've already determined that what you think is scary and what I think is scary are two totally different things." Carter countered her friend's argument.
Laynie shrugged and removed her yarn wig. "Tomato tomatoe. You're going again next year, we'll just bring a backpack leash so you don't get in trouble."
"Over my dead body." Carter answered, "Well, I'm going to bed, hopefully I won't wake any of my nightmare induced screams of terror. Goodnight." And with that she left for her room.
Laynie bit her lip, looking Bruce right in the eye. "She's okay... No reason to worry." She blew a quick, collective kiss to her family, then inched off to her room.
Author's Notes:
Lartovio: thanks everyone for reading! We hope you liked it, and HAAAAAPY HALLOWEEN!
WayToDawn: And so ends the Living With The Avengers Halloween Special! I hope you enjoyed it. It's just our little way of saying Happy Halloween! :D