a/n: Welcome to rule three, a personal favorite of mine that I wrote long before I had the idea to write this fic.

Rule 3: Road trips are unacceptable.

"Dear Lord, shoot me now." I said.

"That can be arranged." Tony shouted from the passenger seat.

Somehow, Steve had convinced us that a Christmas road trip was just what we needed to do, for "bonding" and "fun" or whatever.

I'm not sure what Steve's vision of "fun" is but mine certainly isn't sitting in a cramped minivan with six other people for a loooong car ride. Like a drive all day, drive all night, take turns driving all day, eat drive thru all day, for two weeks drive.

"I have to agree with Lady Scarlette, this is quite unenjoyable." Thor said squirming in the row in front of me, hitting head on the car's ceiling.

If you aren't familiar with how minivans are arranged, let me give you a quick refresher.

So, of course, there's the driver's seat, currently occupied by Steve, because he's the one who owns a minivan. (Don't ask. No one is quite sure why.) Then there's the passenger seat, occupied by Tony who called "Dibs on shotgun for this whole thing because I'm Tony Stark. That's why." before any of us could even say a word. Now the middle row, those seats aren't AS good as passenger or driver, but there's only two of them, so they're quite spacious. Those were taken by Thor and Bruce, because Bruce claims to have slight claustrophobia, and no one wants him to get irritated, and Thor because "He's a big guy." Now the back row seats, these are crap. And trust me. I should know. Especially when you're in the middle squeezed between Clint and Natasha. Yup. I literally got "the worst seat in the house". How, do you ask, did I get stuck with "the worst seat in the house?" Because "She's the smallest. She can deal with it."

Did you know it's literally impossible to sleep in the middle seat of the back row? You have no window to lean on to, and you have two other sleeping people planking you on each side. I'm operating on less sleep than Steve, who was driving. (There was a little incident, causing Steve to almost run straight into the road divider. Luckily those little marks on the side of the road did their job and made an INCREDIBLY loud sound, and woke up Steve, along with everyone else.)

"Steve, I think we should find a motel tomorrow." Natasha sighed after he nearly drove us off the road again.

"No! That's against our grand plan!" Steve protested.

"What about showers? It's been three days. The women and Thor need to wash their hair or it's going to start smelling bad." Tony said grumpily.

"Hey! You're just angry because your beard's growing in!" I taunted.

"Oh yeah? Well you're mad because you haven't gotten any sleep in three days!" He shouted back at me.

"Correct!" I said tossing some trash from the drive thru at his head. Normally Tony and I were best buds, but he was right, I hadn't had any sleep in three days.

Tony grabbed some left over French fries and chucked them at me.

I gasped, unbuckled from my seat, made my way to the from of the car, and promptly dumped the remainder of his soda on his head.

Tony threw me a punch, which I swiftly dodged.

"You jerk!" I shouted, kicking the back of his seat as hard as I could.

"Steve. Pull the car over." Clint said from the back of the car.

"At least I'm not annoying everyone with my PMS!" Tony yelled back, grabbing my arm and twisting it.

"Steve. Pull the car over." Clint shouted, the tension in his voice increasing.

"We're on a highway!" Steve complained.

I gasped. "Tony Stark! You're such an unsympathetic ego-maniac!" I said taking the head rest from his seat and continuously hitting him with it.

"Tell me something I don't know!" he sneered.

"Where do I start?" I asked, only stopping hitting him with the headrest for a moment.

"Steve!" Clint shouted

"On it." Steve said nervously, pulling over to the side of the highway.

"Tony, Scarlette. Out." Clint said, making his way from the back to where the automatic doors were sliding open.

"Yes Mother Hen?" Tony said sarcastically.

"You guys are going to settle this the right way." Clint said.

"And how's that?" Tony asked, obviously not that happy with Clint either.

"Arm wrestle. Winner drives, and gets to pick who sits in the passenger seat." Clint said smugly. That dog. I've got a secret talent for arm wrestling, and he wants to get out of the back just as bad as I do.

"You suck" Tony said from the back middle.

I smiled smugly in the rear view mirror.

"Oh, you guys." Steve complained, frowning.

"I'm bored." Tony complained again.

"Let's sing a song!" Steve suddenly exclaimed.

"NO!" Everyone said in unison.

We all just kinda sat there for a minute until Steve's voice popped up again.

"99 bottles of beer on the wall. 99 bottles of beer."

"NO!" Everyone shouted in unison again.

Just like clockwork, as soon as the silence was established again, Steve's voice was heard again.

"You take one down and pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall."

"My God, Steve! I'm the driver and I say no singing!" I yelled

This time Tony joined in.

"98 bottles of beer on the wall, 98 bottles of beer."

I groaned, and let them annoy themselves.

By the time we got to no more bottles of beer on the wall, the only people not singing were me and Natasha, who was—get this— reading Pride and Prejudice. Even Thor had joined in, causing the noise level in this car to go up by at least 400%. I'm pretty sure any car within 20ft of us could hear us singing.

"This song... I like it!" Thor shouted when they had finished the song. "Another!" He said pounding his fist into the arm rest, causing it to pop off.

"My car!" Steve cried.

"99..." Tony started.

"No!" I screamed at him. "No more singing!"

Clint, being the helpful and responsible person he was, started singing The Iron Man song, some crazy song some crazy person had come up with on the Internet that we had all committed to memory in order to annoy Tony.

"Reporters all swarm him, he just wants to play with his toys! Leave him be!"

This time I had to join in, singing Pepper's lines.

"Pick up your room! Wash your sheets!"

"Shut up!" Tony said. He really hated The Iron Man Song.

"Ash to Ash, dust to dust." Clint continued.

"If you're having problems don't bring someone else in the bed room!"

"SHUT UP! YOU SAID NO SINGING!" Tony raged. "THE NEXT PERSON WHO SINGS A SINGLE WORD IS GOING TO GET THEIR MOUTH TAPED SHUT!"

Clint and I silenced up, and stared out the window. "Who gave Tony duct tape?" I thought to myself.

"Bye bye Miss American Pie..."

Believe it or not, but the first person to get their mouth taped shut, was Thor.

A/N:

Next Rule: There is no such thing as costume switch day.

Thanks reading you beautiful people! If you enjoy it, drop it a review. Bless your face. Mindgeek! Peace off!

-Kitty

-Plus bonus brownies for people who can correctly label the sign offs to the YouTuber. If you list all three, you earn a special place in my fanfiction heart!