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It all started when Thor was allowed to choose the TV channel as the team enjoyed their weekly ritual of pizza in front of the screen while talking about their days and generally catching up with each other. Sometimes these were exciting, filled with impulsive and potentially concerning decisions made while on missions. Other times they were more peaceful, small entertaining stories from a relaxed week shared as they laughed at whatever had been put on. This was one of those weeks.
Thus far, they had managed to avoid giving Thor the power. This mainly happened through Clint persuading Thor that he had missed a very very important episode of Say Yes To The Dress, which coincidentally only happened when Thor was the one choosing. Vision came very close to receiving this treatment, seeing as he put on a lecture about The Origin Of One, but a compromise of Are You Smarter Than A Ten Year Old was reached.
This time, however, Clint wasn't smart enough, and before anyone could even attempt to talk Thor out of it, My Little Pony was on, and Thor had thrown himself down on the armchair, arranging himself so that one of his enormous thighs was protecting the remote.
"Do we have to watch this?" Scott groaned, grabbing a slice of pepperoni.
"All ye nay-sayers!" Thor boomed in response, shoving half of the pizza in his mouth, and from behind him Clint could be heard to mutter under his breath,
"Neigh-sayers."
Eventually the team gave up on convincing Thor that this really wasn't what they wanted to do with their life, and crashed on the sofas, complaining loudly all the way.
"Horses truly are the most mighty of steeds!" Thor exclaimed, six and a half episodes later. The rest of the team were practically comatose, eyes glazed over and mouth half open as, despite themselves, they worried about whether or not the Witches would manage to enslave the ponies.
"Yeah, sure, Thor," Tony muttered in reply, swatting a hand at the demigod as he stood in front of the TV.
"We must take a trip to ride some ourselves!" Thor continued.
"Yes, Thor," Steve gritted his teeth as his sight continued to be impaired, "just get out of the way!"
It wasn't until Vision said softly, "What have you agreed to?" that the rest of the team were jolted out of their stupor, and looked at each other with true fear in their eyes.
"It's going to eat me!" Peter shrieked the second his horse swung it's head to look at him. "I'm going to die!"
Pietro chuckled and shook his head from where he was petting his horse's nose, "It's just a horse, Peter. They can't smell fear."
"I'm going to die!"
The instructor laughed too, looking between the two with a bright expression of amusement. "We have a horse which could accept both of you, if you prefer." From there he looked over at Cassie, who had a horse at least twice the size of her, and Thor, who was taller than his horse, and shrugged. "We're going to need to make some changes anyway."
A few minutes later, Peter was sitting behind Pietro and clinging on for dear life despite the fact that they weren't moving at all, Thor was sitting atop a magnificent stallion, looking majestic as fuck and not at all like someone you'd want to come across in battle, and Cassie was bouncing along on a Shetland Pony.
When the group was ready, most of them looking slightly uneasy with the rolling gait of the horses, they set off at a brisk walk around the paddock. Immediately it became clear who was good with horses.
"Whoever has Socks, the large black one with the white feet," the instructor scoured the crowd and singled out Steve, "if you have trouble getting him to do what you want, don't worry. Especially if you can't get him to stop, he can be unruly sometimes." As if to prove his point, Steve's horse began to get antsy. Just as Socks got a few seconds into a trot, Steve turned his feet in sharply, pulling on the reins and standing slightly.
Socks stopped in his tracks.
"How?" the instructor marvelled, looking as though he was prepared to worship the horse-shit covered ground at Steve's feet. Steve shrugged.
"They respect me," he responded mildly.
Another member of the team who proved astonishingly good with horses was Clint. Before long he was showing off, doing tricks and show-jumps around the track while the others struggled to even stay upright. Even Natasha seemed impressed, watching him from her elegant perch even as she seemed slightly uncomfortable, and asking, "When did you get so good?"
"I get on better with horses than people," Clint replied, as though that wasn't already obvious, "they're like my family!"
"That explains your nose," Wanda muttered darkly.
Before Clint could get offended (and he was beginning to, if the 'o' shape of his mouth was anything to go by), Tony cut in with, "Let's play bumper cars! Or bumper horses, I guess."
Bruce sighed. "If I had a week I couldn't give you all the reasons that's a bad idea." But he made no attempt to stop Tony as he side-barged Vision's horse.
Wanda laughed, enjoying the sight of the Tony desperately trying to control his horse. Sam, noticing the fact that her face, which had paled considerably upon getting on the horse, was brightening up again, joined in. He got as far as directing his horse in the general vicinity of where Tony was, before it decided that it really didn't want him on it's back.
"Are you okay?" Wanda shrieked, just managing to keep the smirk off her face as she scanned Sam with her eyes and mind, ensuring that nothing but his pride and butt were damaged by the horse bucking him onto the mucky floor.
"What is this?" Scott's eyes widened as he shifted from foot to foot, attempting to keep up balance but only managing to overcompensate every time. "I prefer riding ants!"
"What does it say about me that that isn't even the weirdest sentence I've heard this week?" Natasha sighed to Wanda, who couldn't respond beyond a confused cry of,
"Why is my horse going backwards?"
"How do people enjoy this?" Bucky sounded legitimately concerned for the mental health of anyone that voluntarily put themselves up for horse riding, "Why are they so bumpy?"
Bruce perked up at this. "Well, you see, it's partly to do with whether or not the bit fits, because if it is relying on you to keep his head up then that will lead to bumpiness, or if the horses isn't leaning out that could also lead to it. The horse has to be warmed up but if it is slightly hyper the gait will be more bouncy, which feels bumpier, or..."
"I regret asking," Bucky announced.
"Can we go faster now?" Pietro was heard to say, looking bored even as they cantered around.
"N-no," Peter muttered into his back, "please no."
"I want to gallop!" he pouted petulantly, hands gripping the reins just a little bit tighter.
Peter sighed, sounding hard done by. "Fine then," he sighed, twisting his hands into Pietro's t-shirt, "get it over and done with." He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling Pietro push his feet into the horse and move the reins. To his surprise, however, instead of speeding up the horse seemed to slow down. "What the -" he tentatively opened one eye, prepared to shut it again if he saw the ground rushing past him, but instead they appeared to be standing still.
Pietro grinned at him over his shoulder. "Would I do that to you?" he asked.
"Yes," Peter replied, shoving his head between Pietro's shoulder blades, and squealing as Pietro twisted sharply enough to nearly make him fall. "No! No, I meant no!"
"That's what I thought," Pietro said smugly.
"Vision," Steve asked suddenly, pulling his horse up beside Vision's, "have you moved."
Vision shook his head, looking down at the very ground that he had started off at as he mournfully replied, "not an inch."
"I must say," Thor boomed, flinging himself back into the armchair where he had started the whole shebang, "I find watching horses far more entertaining than balancing on them."
The other's had to agree.
"My Little Pony?" Thor changed the channel without waiting for a response, which, when it came, was,
"I love this episode!"