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"Look at this look at this look at this!" Cassie danced her way into the Avengers' kitchen, waving a poster so excitedly that no-one had any idea what was on it.
"Look at what?" Scott asked, jerking his head from side to side in an attempt to read it but only succeeding in looking like a confused puppy with earache.
"There's a circus! Can we go can we go can we?"
"I'm not sure," Steve replied slowly, thinking over whether Fury would go mad or not, but help came for Cassie froma surprising place.
"Let's go, it'll be fun."
Tony turned to Clint, raising an eyebrow. "You like the circus?"
Clint shrugged. "I used to work in one, it'll be nice for the kids." Steve sighed, raising his hands in defeat, and wandered off to convince Fury.
"Well," he returned, half an hour later, "we can go, but on one condition." He winced. "We have to put on our own circus, for the public, because we need better PR." Cassie cheered, and everyone else groaned.
As soon as they paid the frankly exorbitant fee to enter the circus, Steve realised a huge problem with this. Whilst he didn't trust all of his team-mates (or, really, any of them) to wander around a circus for a few hours, where there were knives and children and dangerous feats, he couldn't really keep them all together.
"Come, Captain!" Thor grabbed his arm tightly, wrenching him in the direction of a delicious smell. "Let us feast!"
"Maybe we should stick together or..." Steve was left unable to complete his thought, powerless in the ake of Thor's quest for food The rest of the team watched as Thor dragged him behind him, buying so many toffee apples, cotton candy and every other food that it barely fit in his arms, and, once he was out of sight, split up.
"I don't get it!" Clint yelled, flinging his arms up in the air in defeat. Despite the fact that it had been a mere twenty minutes, he had hit all of the stalls one by one, winning teddies and sweets and, at one, a giant stuffed minion which he immediately passed off to the nearest child, making a face. But at this one stall, no matter how hard or straight he knew he threw the dart, he always missed the bullseye by a fraction of an inch.
"What don't you get?" Bucky appeared behind him, and Clint was too well-trained to flinch, although he did let out a low breath once he realised who it was.
"I can't win!" he groaned, resisting the urge to flip off the man running the stall, who was grinning smugly. "How can I not win?" Bucky shrugged, frowning when the movement only jostled his right shoulder, the left staying completely still.
"Come on, Clint," he remarked, reaching out to steer the younger man in the direction of one of the tents, or perhaps another stall, "you win some, you lose some." Still protesting, Clint went with him, but stopped when he did.
"What is it?"
Bucky reached up to touch his metal shoulder, pulling at it slightly. "I don't know, there's a kinda...resistance, I guess? Nothing to worry about, just -" Clint twisted in his grip so fast that Bucky jerked back automatically, and watched as Clint pointed a finger accusingly at the man.
"You used a magnet!" he announced, swinging his arm wildly, "That's why I couldn't get it!"
The man leaned over the counter until he was less than an inch from Clint's ear. "Prove it," he whispered.
Bucky managed to grab Clint and drag him away, kicking and screaming, before he murdered anyone, and decided that gathering everyone together was the best way to avoid any near deaths.
Just as he was regretting ever attempting to take over the team leadership while Steve was Thor's captive, because honestly, the circus was massive so how on earth was he going to find anyone, a blur of white hair barrelled straight into him.
"Pietro!" On instinct, Bucky grabbed at him, knowing that anyone moving at that speed had to be either a superhuman or really hyped up on sugar (in Pietro's case, both!). He hauled the young man up, and was saved the trouble of having to ask what had happened when a woman exited the tent Pietro had just come from, shaking her fist angrily.
"We don't want any trouble," Clint told her, in what was probably the first and last time he would ever mean it, but she didn't calm down.
"He was going to hit me!"
"What happened?" Bucky sighed, and Pietro at least had the good grace to look ashamed.
"She's a fortune teller," replied Pietro, but he didn't have to get any further before she cut in,
"All I said was that, no matter what he thought, he hadn't found his true love! I only say what the cards tell me!" Bucky couldn't find it in him to yell at Pietro for that, but he also couldn't be bothered to explain to the woman that that wasn't the nicest thing to go around telling people, so instead he just pulled Pietro with him on his journey to reunite the team.
They found Tony watching the escape artist as he untangled himself from chains whilst dunked in water. What was weird, Bucky noticed as they squeezed in to join him, was that he had a notebook out and appeared to be writing down what the man was doing.
"It isn't polite to tell people how it's done," Clint muttered, looking lazy but with a sharp edge to his voice, "they don't like it."
"I'm not going to," Tony replied, not taking his eyes off the show, "I'm just taking notes for the next time I get kidnapped or trapped in my suit." None of them could argue with that, so they sat through the show.
"Do you know where Bruce will be?" Bucky asked, glad to be out of the stifling heat and cramped conditions of the show. Tony shrugged, also seeming to be breathing easier now that they were out of the crowd.
"I think he said something about illusions, or something? I'm not sure." It was the best lead they had, so off they went.
Not only was Bruce watching the illusionist, but Steve and Thor were also there, Thor still cradling masses of junk food. Bruce and Steve were having a heated discussion about something, and when Bucky got closer he realised that Bruce was explaining to Steve how they performed the tricks, using science and mirrors, while Steve nodded along in a way that meant everything Bruce was saying was going in one ear and out the other, if it went in at all. Bruce noticed this, shaking his head for a while before he gave up and watched the show, even managing to enjoy it without attempting to explain away the magic.
"What do you think?" Clint asked as they filed out, looking all around for the next place that an Avenger could be.
"It used to be so much less PC," was all that Steve said, surprising them all with his blunt tone, "It was better that way. Now," he clapped his hands, "does anyone know where the others would be?"
Pietro piped up, "Wanda will probably be with the person that reads minds. She was looking at the poster earlier."
When they got to the mind readers show, the first thing that they noticed was Vision was standing on the stage with the woman, who looked slightly confused but was powering through it anyway. He was being told to think of a number between one and one hundred, and Bucky crossed his fingers that he wasn't going to do something ridiculous like think of pi or something.
"Did you know," someone whispered from beside them, and when Bucky looked to the side he realised that Wanda had joined them, "that she has no fucking clue what's going on? Vision volunteered to be read, he's going to test them."
Tony buried his face in his hand. "Don't do that," Steve sounded exhausted, and Wanda rolled her eyes.
"I told him to agree with them no matter what. What do you take me for?"
Steve flapped a hand in the air wildly. "You know what, do whatever you want, let's just finish this so we can find the others."
"Well," Bucky raised an eyebrow, "the main attraction starts right after this, and they'll probably be there, so..."
"Sure," the sigh was world-weary, "let's do that then."
Peter, Cassie, Scott, Natasha and Sam caught up with them in the Big Top. Peter was complaining, gesticulating wildly with his hands as he pointed out that he could have done the trapeze easily, and probably better, while Cassie openly admired the lions and, by proxy, those that could tame them, leading to Scott jealously announcing, "I can control animals too!"
"Ants," Cassie replied, not looking up from where her attention was still caught by the magnificant beasts, "not lions."
They stayed through the rest of the show at Cassie's request, although Steve was on edge the whole time, but made a hasty exit when one of the clowns attempted to pull Natasha onto the stage and got a knife in the throat for his trouble.
"Wait!" Wanda yelped, as Steve desperately turned the key in the minivan and wondered if they could get out of there before someone called the police, "Where's Sam?"
"I thought he was with you?" Bruce was very obviously regretting ever joining the avengers, because the fights he could deal with, but problematic outings to the circus? Not so much.
"Call him?" Bucky, ever the voice of reason, pointed out.
"Where are you?" Wanda shouted down the phone the second it connected, listening to the muffled voice talking back before shrieking in disbelief, "The elephants?!"
Two minutes later, apologising for the delay but pointing out that the elephants were beautiful and worth almost getting left behind, Sam was there and they could set off, only to be greeted at the door to the tower by Nick Fury coming the closest to smiling he ever did.
"Looking forward to putting on a show of your own?" he asked, before stalking away.
Tony slammed his head on the door frame. Repeatedly.
"Welcome!" Steve announced, raising his voice to be heard above the excited crowd that had been lucky enough to be let in to the avengers circus, "I'm proud to present for one night only, the Avengers!" Everyone clapped, and cheered, and whooped, giving him just enough time to harshly whisper backstage, "Guys, please, get it together," before turning back to the audience and calling, "out first act is Tony Stark, aka Iron Man!"
Tony waddled onstage, glowering murderously at Steve's apologetic wince as the crowd laughed. His grease covered jeans had been replaced by a bright yellow shirt and ridiculously checked trousers, his hair covered by a red curly wig and his face covered in pasty white makeup with a red ball on his nose. How he had been persuaded to be the clown, Steve had no idea.
Steve took the time that Tony spent entertaining everyone with his terrible jokes and well timed trips, falls and custard pies (he went old school sue him) to help dress Wanda up as the bearded lady, much to her loud discomfort. It was only as he finished with her makeup that he heard Tony say, "Why can't orphans play baseball? They don't know where home is."
Muttering threats under his breath, Steve sprinted back onstage, grabbed Tony by the collar and yanked him off, saying to the audience at the same time, "And next up we have the bearded lady, Wanda Maximoff!" At the dark look on his face, Wanda didn't even bother to complain before going onstage.
After that, the Avengers complied with Steve's commands, even if it couldn't exactly be said that things ran smoothly. Even Bruce went along with being painted grey so that he could be used as the elephant in the act after Wanda, with Thor being the animal tamer until he tried to fight the lions, by which point Steve didn't even hesitate before dragging him off and begging Sam to just do his damn job without terrifying the kids in the audience. Sam, as usual, didn't disappoint, getting up on the tightrope and doing all sorts of flips and cartwheels to keep everyone paying attention long enough for Steve to at least attempt to get everyone else in the right mindset.
Despite his protests, Peter wasn't put on trapeze, chosen instead for the important job of throwing knives at Pietro during his trick as the knife juggler. Pietro was good, moving just slow enough to be seen but fast enough that he was in no danger, even if after every knife thrown Peter would mutter, "Fuck please don't be dead." That got the audience back in the mindset of 'this is going to be fun' rather than 'one of them is going to murder us all', which is always useful for a public event.
With Bucky strategically disguised in the audience so that they would know exactly what date was being thought of, Vision embarked on a magical fifteen minutes of mind reading, pausing only when a small child was heard asking whether that was the Winter Soldier, by which point he made a hasty retreat.
Scott, with Cassie as his glamorous assistant, proceeded to put on a magic show, pulling rabbits out of hats and 'sawing Sam in half' as Cassie distracted the audience's eyes with a cute dance routine, because Steve didn't want to use anyone's sex appeal as a cheap trick but wasn't above using the fact that they had an adorable six year old on their side. For his final trick, Scott 'disappeared', leaving Cassie to pretend to search all over the stage for him before he resized again right in front of her.
The grand finale was Clint and Natasha, the trapeze artists. It was all very well and good, with the two working together impeccably to pull of seemingly impossible catches, until Clint made one too many bad jokes for Natasha's taste and she dropped him, mid-flip. Thankfully for Steve, fully ready to sprint on-stage with a first aid kit, Clint turned over in mid air, landed on his feet and bowed as though it was all part of the show, and the audience's shocked fear turned into claps and cheers.
Until, that is, some stupid man took it in his head to wink at Natasha. She produced a knife, somehow, from her skin tight suit, and threw it. Even from high up in the rafters where she was still hanging, her knife found its mark, and would have caused some serious damage had Pietro not been on hand to sprint across the room and dive for it, grabbing it by the blade at just the last minute.
Unable to trust anyone else, Steve closed the show on his own with some thankful words, although he did relax enough to allow them to come back to take a bow.
The newspapers the next day had mixed feelings about the circus. On the one hand, a woman was claiming that Black Widow had attempted to murder her husband, and on the other the man himself agreed, adding the comment 'It was awesome!'.
Fury couldn't yell, though, because the public seemed to enjoy it. He seemed to be planning another, as long as no-one ran away first.