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They were all shaken after seeing the alternate realities the Scarlet Witch had flung at them. Shaken and in no condition to make decisions. Steve didn’t know which of the visions he’d seen disturbed him the most- it was probably a toss-up between the one where he chopped Tony’s head off with his shield which had been really disgusting or the one where he married a female version of Tony which was just plain too weird to contemplate. Of course, he had to pretend he hadn’t seen anything where he behaved like an idiot. The Avengers needed a leader they could rely on not to chop off heads or seduce them. Not that he had any intention of seducing Tony. Ever.
Thor was staring at Mjolnir as if the hammer was likely to bite him, while Natasha was standing protectively over Bruce who was huddled in on himself with his arms wrapped around his head while he rocked back and forth.
“We need to regroup,” Steve said. “Away from here.” He looked around at the destruction the Avengers had caused.
“Yeah, where?” Tony snapped. “SHIELD? I don’t … I’m not…”
Steve stopped Tony before he went further. They couldn’t afford to fight amongst themselves. Someone had to remain calm, and that was never going to be Tony, so Steve was elected. “Somewhere quiet, where we won’t be endangering other people.”
“Somewhere no one can connect with any of us,” Natasha said. She glanced at Clint.
Clint looked up from the remains of his bow. “Yeah. Ok. I gotta place.”
“SHIELD safehouse?” Tony was still jittery and apparently paranoid about SHIELD- even more than usual. Steve wondered what he’d seen, but he couldn’t ask, not without being willing to tell about his visions. He didn’t know why Tony had been such a big part of the more traumatic ones, but he sure knew that mentioning them would lead to a lot of squabbling and wasted time.
“I had a life before SHIELD.” Clint folded up the broken bow and nodded at Natasha. “Yeah, I’ll just call to tell the caretakers to clear out.” He started walking. “It’s not fancy, Stark. We’ll have to divide up the chores.”
“Chores?” Tony asked, but everyone was already following Clint. Steve paused to lend Natasha a hand getting Bruce on his feet.
“Right,” Clint said as he got out of the lead pickup truck in the Avengers’ parade and went to the mailbox attached to a leaning stump to extract a folded note. He read it and nodded.
Tony had got out of the second truck and was staring down the rutted dirt road that led between pastures dotted with trees. “You weren’t kidding about it not being fancy.”
“There’s a couple generators, and a good well. There’s wifi, too,” Clint said reassuringly.
“Thank God,” Tony said before he climbed back into the truck to continue his discussion with Bruce about something or other which Steve had tuned out of hours ago. He was pretty sure that whatever they were talking about was less interesting to him than the possibility of getting a hot meal at the farmhouse. His digestion might be able to handle roadside snacks, but not when accompanied by the squabbling that had started five minutes into the journey. If Steve never goes on a road trip with the Avengers again, it’ll be too soon.
“Ok,” Clint said as he opened the door and led the way into a spacious and surprisingly comfortable house. “With the staff gone, there’s enough beds for everyone, and there should be enough food to tide us over until I can make a run to the market.” He laid his broken bow down gently on a long table. “So, who’s gonna do what?”
“I’ve never been on a farm,” Steve replied. “What needs doing?”
Clint scratched his head. “Well, let’s go with the basics. Cook?”
Bruce raised his hand hastily. “Me. I’ll take that job.” He smiled and said, “I’ve been on a farm.”
“Good choice, Bruce,” Natasha said. “I’ll take fence patrol.” She picked up a ball cap from a filled rack on the wall and strode outside, passing Bruce who was on his way to the kitchen.
“Fence patrol?” Thor asked. It was the first thing he’d said since the visions. “Are there enemies of your land, Barton?”
“Nah. Just gotta make sure the livestock doesn’t get out.”
“What do you raise here, Clint?” Tony asked.
“Nothing, really. Just… some pets, I guess. Once I moved in, the place looked a little bare, so I got some animals no one wanted.” There was a woof behind Clint and a three-legged, one-eyed yellow retriever came bouncing up, slobbering and wagging all over. Clint thumped the dog on the side. “Like Pizza dog here. A couple ponies, a few cows, a cat, odds and ends.”
“I shall take up the care of the animals, if you wish it,” Thor said.
Clint hesitated. “I don’t know, maybe I should do that.”
Thor huffed and turned away, looking as if his feelings were hurt.
Before the moment could get awkward Tony said, “Plum job? I’ll take it, you can’t hog the good stuff, Clint,” waving his hand just to be obnoxious. Steve refrained from rolling his eyes.
“I really don’t…” Clint said.
“Just tell me what needs doing,” Steve said to Clint. “I don’t need any ‘plums’.”
Clint looked at Tony and smiled. “Sure. We need a lot of firewood, you saw the pile outside?”
“Yeah. I can handle an axe.” While Steve had grown up in the city, he and the Howling Commandoes had roughed it enough to appreciate a good fire. He went back outside, followed by Tony and Clint who paused in the doorway to argue. Steve moved on, he’d had enough fighting. He was looking forward to the purely physical effort of turning logs into firewood. He picked up one of a pair of axes that was leaning against the porch and strode over to the pile.
Thor was standing there, looking rather lost. Steve knew the feeling. “There’s a lot of logs. We could share the work,” he offered. “Take your mind off things.”
Thor shook his head and then lifted it. “No.” He raised his voice. “There are answers to be found. I shall seek them!” He whirled Mjolnir overhead and vanished into the sky.
“Huh,” Steve said. “Ok. See you later, Thor.” Steve hefted the axe, but then he noticed Clint smirking behind Tony’s back and decided to see what was up with that. He put down the axe and followed Clint and Tony around the house and over to a barn. A very large barn. Steve wondered if barns were bigger in the future, to balance out telephones and underwear being smaller.
“Ok,” Clint was saying breezily, “this is the cow barn. They’re really sweet old ladies, but they had a hard time before I got them, so you have to be careful not to frighten them.”
“Uh huh,” Tony nodded. “Don’t scare the cows. Got it. Do they need to be milked? I bet I could do that.”
This time Steve did roll his eyes. No one could see him, after all.
“Nah, like I said, these girls are retired.” Clint opened a human size door set in a much larger door and shoved Tony in. “Say hi to the girls.” Then he pushed the door shut and leaned against it. “Wait for it, Steve.”
Steve tilted his head to one side. There was absolute silence for several minutes. And then there came a knock on the door. “Clint,” Tony said quietly. “There are no cows in here.”
“Sure there are!” Clint leaned harder against the door, which was rattling. “You’re just not looking close enough.”
“Clint,” Tony said, and then he was drowned out by a loud animal trumpeting noise. “CLINT, your ELEPHANTS DON’T LIKE ME!”
Laughing, Clint pulled the door open and let Tony out. “Millie just wants a snack. Hey, Millie.” Clint pulled a green stalk from a battered metal bin and went inside the dim barn. “Yeah, that’s my good girl. Big bad Iron Man didn’t know where the sugar cane was, sweetheart.”
Tony and Steve looked back in the barn. The elephant was munching on the green stalk, ears flapping lazily. For an elephant, it seemed rather thin. Clint stroked the elephant’s trunk. “Millie was a star when I was a kid, but you know, they don’t have much of a retirement plan in the circus. So. Millie came here, but she was kinda lonely, so I found Gertie and Esme.”
“You keep elephants in your barn,” Steve said.
“Well, when the weather’s bad, or we’re expecting company. They don’t like cars. Get the doors, will ya?”
Steve and Tony pulled open the large doors, and watched as the elephants made a dignified parade out into the open, heading for the nearest pasture, with two scruffy brown ponies following them. Tony said, “Ok, fine, you can take care of your ‘cows’. I’ll just open a can of Fancy Feast for the cat, and I’m done.”
Tony headed back toward the house. Clint was still smirking. Steve waited until Tony got out of earshot to say, “Ok, drop the other shoe.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Steve’s eyes widened. “If elephants are cows, then what are cats?”
“CLINT!” Tony shouted from the house.
Steve started running, with Clint beside him. A joke was a joke, but not when it involved a circus cat! Steve slammed to a halt just inside the doorway, blocking Clint. Tony was kneeling on the floor holding the jaws of a heavily maned full grown lion wide open. Tony looked up at Clint and frowned. “What have you been feeding him? He has the worst breath ever.” Tony scratched the lion behind one ear. The lion grunted and flopped over on one side. Tony stood up. “You keep his food in the kitchen?”
“What?” Clint asked. “You can’t take elephants, but Lennie doesn’t bother you?”
Tony gave Clint an eyeroll. “Please. You think I flaunt my money? If I had a nickel for every pet lion I’ve seen at a wanna be’s party… well, ok, I’d be poor. Where's the bathroom?” Clint pointed and Tony sauntered out of the room.
“Huh,” Clint said. “Do you think I should tell him about the sea lion in the tub?”
“Nah,” Steve said.
“AHHHHHHH!”
“He found Flipper,” Clint said solemnly.
“Sounds like it.” Steve smiled.
Tony ran crashing down the stairs and jumped into Steve’s arms. Steve caught him automatically. Tony yelled, “BLUE! BLUE! IT WAS SWIRLING!”
The kitchen door opened and Bruce leaned out, waving a gravy smeared ladle. “How do you expect me to cook in all this commotion? Um. What?”
Tony pressed his head against Steve’s pecs and mumbled, “Blue SWIRLY.”
“Oh, hell.” Bruce tossed the ladle to the lion, which happily began licking gravy. “Yeah, Pepper told me about that. You know, 2000 Flushes? Big Blue? Chlorox automatic bowl cleaner? Reminds Tony of the ortal-pay.”
The front door opened. Natasha walked in and took off her ball-cap. She looked at the lion licking the gravy ladle, Bruce in his ‘kiss the cook’ apron, a blushing Steve holding Tony, and Clint, who raised his hands and shrugged.
“Well, this explains why Rhodes and Wilson didn’t want to come along,” Natasha said. “No one likes being a third wheel.” She went over to Bruce and grabbed him by the hair, dipping him to give him a kiss. Then she tugged him upright. “What’s for dinner?”
Bruce blinked. “Anything you want, Natasha.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
Lennie picked up the ladle and followed Natasha and Bruce into the kitchen. Clint grinned at Steve and gave him a thumbs up before joining them.
Steve sighed. “Hey, Tony. I’ve got to go cut the firewood. You wanna come with me?”
Tony nodded.
Steve walked outside still carrying Tony. He set Tony down on the porch. “You’re ok, now?”
“Sure. Fine. Never better.” Tony flashed Steve a fake smile. “So. You carried me over the threshold. Well, you are an old-fashioned sort of guy.” Tony grabbed an axe and sauntered over to the woodpile, smirking.
Steve really, really needed to smash something now. He hefted the axe and looked at Tony.
Tony began humming the Wedding March.
It was going to be a long, long day, Steve decided as he started chopping wood.