`Authors' Notes: (We do not own the characters from the Avengers. Others that show up though are ours.) This story is based off of notes taken by Clint and Thor. It was then written by Thor and Bruce. More details at the end.
Sleeping Time (The section where we tried really hard not to make it sound gay)
(With arguably mixed success.)
It was now eleven at night, and the Avengers still had two more movies to watch. They'd see the one on the Battle of Manhattan in theaters the next day. The next movie on the list was the one on Thor, which the Asgardian was ecstatic to see. He practically vibrated in anticipation of seeing how the Midgardians viewed his adventure. Steve, on the other hand, was exhausted. This was pretty normal, given the super soldier's tendency to overwork himself, but Bruce and Clint seemed pretty sleepy too. Even Stark seemed too tired to make more than the occasional sarcastic comment. In fact, before the movie they'd wandered upstairs again, to the room Pepper had designated Clint's, and now no one wanted to move. That wasn't a problem: instead of going back down, they all watched Thor's movie on one of Tony's computers. Through the whole thing Thor, Clint, and Bruce huddled under the Asgardian's cape. But after two and a half hours of astrophysics, culture shock, and betrayals worthy of a Shakespearean epic, everyone was still in more or less a vegetative state. Tony might have had Pepper set up a fancy guest room for each of them, but they were far away, in another wing of the house. It had been a long day. It was going on two in the morning. And they were going to sleep where they were.
Tony, of course, wound up with the queen sized bed. With cocktail glass sheets. (Clint just needed to point that out in the notes later.) Well, after all, it's his house. Thor, though, seemed to think that was inconsiderate of him as a host, and said as much, so Tony offered up the remaining space to anyone who wanted it. Needless to say, he made it as awkward as humanly possible, then acted surprised and hurt when no one volunteered. In the end, Clint had to snap that no one wanted to join Tony, and he especially didn't want to wake up in the morning and find himself there, before Tony would shut up. Steve curled up on a sofa way too small for him with USA on the floor nearby. And that left Bruce, Clint, and Thor with a pile of blankets and a patch of carpet.
Steve, to no one's surprise, fell asleep right away. The speed with which he managed to drop off did startle them a little, though. Meanwhile, Bruce and Clint and Thor lay on the ground, wondering aimlessly whether they should shut the windows, or the curtain, or both, or neither. . . the conversation started to go in circles after a while. One by one, the rest of them started to drop off. In the end, that left Clint, the last to fall asleep, stuck between Bruce and Thor.
It was a bad night for the archer. Before he fell asleep, he couldn't help but worry he'd wake up and find someone right next to him. Eventually, he did manage to decide that was ridiculous and go to sleep-only to wake a few hours later with Bruce uncomfortably close and Thor practically hugging him. The Asgardian mumbled something in his sleep-"Loki! Du rẵnade den trevliga damen?" was how it sounded to Clint. Clint had a hard time sleeping after that. Later, Thor did let go, and Bruce did move away, but still. The latter briefly woke up and asked Clint if he needed to move to let him up. Clint declined and did his best to fall asleep again.
Not surprisingly, he woke up early, as soon as sunlight began to filter through the previously un-shut window and curtains. It had to be barely seven, but to be honest, Clint was happy enough to not have to worry about sleeping anymore. Thor and Bruce were starting to wake up around then, too. Clint considered making a blanket nest, but Thor turned out to be a huge blanket hog, and Bruce had rolled over and gone back to sleep as soon as the curtains were closed.
It was quiet for a few minutes, and then the Asgardian got bored. Bored Asgardians don't generally make good house guests, and Thor was no exception. There was nothing better to do, and so he started breaking things. Which forced Clint to scramble to stop him before he could cause too much of a ruckus. So much for quiet, though it could have been worse. Bruce was awake again, this time for good, he said, a bit disgruntled. But Steve had managed to stay asleep somehow, and Tony slept through the whole thing like a dead man.
To Clint, not having anything better to do meant an excuse to look over his notes. He really wanted to show them to Natasha, but he had to admit she probably wouldn't care. Not like anything was going on, anyway. He and Bruce and Thor were all bored out of their minds. Couldn't the others just wake up so they could get a start on the day already?
"How much longer d'you think it'll be till they wake up?" Clint whispered.
"Hours, I guess," said Bruce. "Maybe around noon?"
They contemplated the prospect of waiting another four hours, doing absolutely nothing.
"I mean, that's kind of ridiculous," Bruce admitted. "They'd be getting what, eleven hours of sleep?"
"We should wake them up," Clint said, adamantly.
"Seems kinda rude. . ." Bruce replied.
"No, my friend, they would not wish to sleep during such a party," Thor interrupted. "It shall be for their own benefit that we wake them."
In the end, they compromised. Tony was a lazy slugabed, but Steve probably really did need the rest, so they'd do their best to wake up the inventor and let the soldier sleep. The odds of that succeeding seemed relatively low, but their intentions were good, right? And it was still early-ish, so they could wait, they decided, until nine o'clock. Nine was, as Bruce put it, a perfectly reasonable time to expect someone to be up by. And it would leave Tony with eight hours of sleep, which is what they recommend anyway. It was a good plan. The only flaw was that they still had nearly an hour of waiting.
"Forty minutes," whispered Clint, staring at Tony. "Soon."
At first, they attempted to actually talk to pass the time. By the time it was ten of nine, though, they were all staring at the clock, watching the seconds tick by.
Seven minutes forty seconds to go.
They coordinated plans for just how they would wake up Tony.
Five minutes twenty-three seconds.
This should really have been a lot more boring than it actually was.
Three minutes fifty-six seconds.
New Year's Eve had never been this interesting.
Two minutes thirty-eight seconds.
They made a backup plan.
One minute thirteen seconds.
Forty-nine seconds.
Twenty-four seconds.
Thirteen.
Ten
Nine. . .eight. . .seven. . .six. . .
At nine o'clock sharp, the three sprung to their feet. Bruce and Thor ran to the window and flung the curtains wide open. Clint simultaneously flipped the light switch. But the light now filling the room was far dimmer than they'd hoped, and Tony was stubbornly refusing to wake up.
Well, that left them with Plan B, then. Clint flicked the lights back off, and then they all flopped onto Tony's bed. Thor was practically hugging Tony; Clint and Bruce awkwardly curled up at the foot of the bed. Even this, though, elicited little response from the billionaire, and so they ended up yanking away all his blankets and pillows. Plan C did succeed in waking up Tony ("What the. . . what the hell?! You bastards. . .") . Unfortunately, it also woke up Steve. Well, technically it was Tony's response that woke Steve, but still. The three did feel guilty about that, but only a little. Now the party could continue.
Or maybe not. Even with the bed stripped, Tony still refused to get up, and Steve didn't seem to want to move either. Bruce, Clint, and Thor gave up and started making a nest out of the bedding.
It was at this time that USA decided to have his turn at getting Tony out of bed. Leaping at the inventor, tongue out in preparation, the golden made the gathered Avengers roar in laughter. After a few moments of wrestling with the surprisingly strong puppy, Tony managed to pin USA down. Tony gathered the retriever in his arms, walked out of the room. . . and proceeded to toss USA over the railing to the first floor. And then had the nerve to pretend not to understand why everyone was horrified. Steve immediately began yelling at him and attacking Tony with pillows. Bruce tried to explain that this was crossing a line. Thor took it a bit better-roughhousing is a bit more intense in Asgard-but was still pretty indignant. That left Clint to actually go look over the railing and notice that USA had landed on his feet and was, in fact, perfectly fine. The archer quickly stumbled down the stairs. Lifting the pup, and getting a lick on the face as a reward, Clint wondered if a return trip would yield the same result. He shrugged and tossed USA back to the second floor.
"USA!" cried Steve, giving up on hitting Tony to hug the golden.
"The fuc-" Tony started before getting an elbow to the rubs contrary of Bruce. "Is that thing a cat or something?"
"Uh, Thor, what pet store did you get USA from?" wondered Clint, coming back up the stairs.
The Asgardian's laugh that followed was very unnerving.
Authors' Notes Con.
THE ENDING OF THIS SECTION IS MY FAVORET PART IN THIS TALE. AND NAY I WILL NOT BE INFORMING YOU OF THE ANSWER.
For the record, this chapter's subtitle was originally my ironic comment in the margins, and the sub-subtitle was my comment on the comment. I didn't originally intend for it to be published, but Thor, and then Steve and the others, overruled me.
(For everyone's information "Du rẵnade den trevliga damen?" means "You robed the nice lady?" in Swedish)