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Fury had spent a long while calculating the risk of various Avengers exercises and had decided that the next team bonding activity took place far away from humanity and civilisation...the countryside. And so it was that, at five in the morning, while every Avenger was half-asleep and not prepared for any form of activity except sleeping, they were roused from their beds to be shoved into a coach and carried away. About four hours later, still not fully awake but aware of themselves enough to be questioning what the hell was going on, the coach arrived at a campsite, which had been cleared for the weekend.
Once they had pulled themselves from their seats and left the coach, Coulson lined them all up and removed all of their weapons. It took about an hour for him to be confident that they were no longer a danger, although he still watched Natasha warily. She probably had way more weapons than he had confiscated, he just wasn't sure where. The next thing he did was take away all of their gadgets and electronic equipment. Tony complained bitterly the whole while, saying that the company would fall apart in his absence, and then, when he wasn't believed, announced that he would never survive two days without his gadgets, that he was going to die miles from civilisation with only the bugs for company. Peter, who, like a true teenager, would have complained had he been awake, looked far more alert and afraid at the mention of bugs.
True to all camping experiences, two overly chirpy camp leaders made their way over to the sleepy bunch of superheroes, introducing themselves as Madeline and Dan, and proceeded to split them into groups. Coulson whispered something to them before he left, taking the coach and therefore their last link to the outside world, which resulted in the teams being split rather interestingly. Team One had Tony, Wanda, Thor, Sam, Clint and Vision, and Team Two had Steve, Pietro, Peter, Natasha, Bruce and Bucky. They had to name themselves, with Team One choosing Wii Not Fit, and Team Two choosing Scared Hitless (Clint and Peter's ideas, respectively).
They were then given an activity sheet for their 'fun filled weekend of fun!', and told to set up camp anywhere, since they'd booked the entire site just for the twelve of them. Dan looked suspicious, but Madeline had obviously worked out who they were and looked nothing short of relieved that the general public weren't going to be endangered. They were given some time to wake up before their first activity, the first day being filled with physical activity and the second with team games, during which Bruce wandered off to collect data about the wildlife and just enjoy the peaceful scenery, which was ruined slightly by Thor and Clint's plans to hunt. Thor was also planning on knocking a tree down for firewood, which was about when the camp leaders returned in a hurry, as though they had decided that leaving them alone was a bad idea, to take them to the rock climbing wall.
They taught the Avengers the ropes (literally) with an ease you get from repeating the same thing over and over again, and let them choose who would go first. It was simple, you climbed up the rock wall and abseiled down the smooth one. Peter laughed, not even bothering with the rocks as he scaled the wall using his 'spidery powers', as Clint put it, and abseiled down easily. "Beat that, suckers," he winked, which everyone obviously took as an insult to their pride.
Clint also found it easy, saying, "Are you kidding me? I climb buildings! This is child's play." The camp leaders were regretting everything already, Steve could see it in their eyes. Desperate to choose someone who wouldn't act stupidly superior, he practically shoved Bruce into the harness, ignoring his protests. Bruce heaved himself about halfway up, muttering about upper arm strength all the while, before he gave up and was hauled back down, red in the face and panting.
Thor laughed at the sight of the wall, raising his fist in preparation for flight, and everyone hastily stopped him, showing the weird brightly coloured sticky-out rocks that he had to hold on to to carry himself up. Though confused, Thor did as they asked, and enjoyed it immensely, calling it, "Far more satisfying than flying."
"This is why I have a suit," grunted Tony, unused to this much activity so early in the morning ('Tony it is nearly noon' Steve pointed out, to no avail), but the taunts of 'old man' from Pietro and Clint were enough to have him going all the way to the top, flopping down in an ungainly heap when he got there, and then being shoved out of the hut to abseil down. He then challenged Pietro to do better than him, which, to Pietro's credit, he did until he was about halfway up, when he made the mistake of looking down and seeing both how far up he was and how far he had to go, at which he clung to the rocks. When urged to come down, he refused, trying to grasp the rocks above him.
"Congratulations!" Dan called down, "You have managed to find the hardest way up there is! You don't get a prize." Since he still wouldn't come down, Peter climbed up after him, ignoring the cries about not wearing a harness.
"Put your damn foot there," he ordered, "no there, no, there, no," in the end he just grabbed Pietro's foot and moved it to where it should be, from which point it was much easier.
Wanda had the opposite problem. Climbing up the first few proved difficult, but once Natasha had given her a leg up she practically flew up the wall. Sam also encountered few problems on his way up, although he did tell everyone how much faster it would be if he was allowed his suit. Bucky found the rock-climbing wall endearingly easy, and, surprisingly, it was Steve that struggled, after his feet slipped so he tightened his grip on the handholds, crushing one out of shape.
Vision performed the entire activity with a put-upon sigh, as he mused on why humans did this. Natasha went last, and, after many catcalls from Clint about how good her bum looked from this angle, she spun around and climbed the wall backwards, almost as easily as she was doing it forwards.
They were led on to the high ropes, lined up in the same order, and taught what to do. Peter, who was beginning to think that this whole camping thing wasn't as bad as it sounded, once more completed the task with ease. So did Clint, who decided to do a handstand on the thin log, just to remind everyone how easy he was finding this. Bruce, determined to complete the task seeing as he was the only on who didn't manage to get all the way up the wall, ignored every instinct he had that was screaming at him to get down, and, slowly but surely, got across the obstacle course.
"Is this how humans prove themselves?" Thor asked, once more astonished with the thrill-seeking nature of the Midgardian race as he bounded across the high ropes course.
"What the shit!" Tony yelped as he fell for about the fifth time, "How is my balance so terrible?" Considering how often he swore, it was doubly lucky that the park was devoid of children.
Pietro wobbled across the course, until about halfway when Wanda had the brilliant idea of getting him to do it super speed. He did, discovering that apparently the faster you go the more it wobbles, who would have guessed? He was going fast enough not to fall until he was off the course, which looked even more ridiculous than falling whilst on the course. Wanda wasn't particularly keen it, but did it anyway, looking badass as she went.
In the opposite way to the rock climbing wall, Sam found it easier without a suit, because the suit was heavy enough to impact his balance. Tony began to make calculations on how to make the suit lighter.
"What is the point of all this?" Bucky asked, as he finished the task really quickly. Steve did too, and they agreed that it was like the agility courses from the army, just higher up. Vision had given up on even questioning humanity by this point.
"Let me show you how to do it," Natasha said contemptuously, flipping off Clint whilst gracefully maneuvering the course.
The final activity that day was the zipwire. Tony went first, muttering physics equations under his breath as he tried to convince himself that it was scientifically safe. Steve swore he heard Tony yell, "E equals MC squared!" whilst screaming as he zipped over the lake. Steve himself, after being convinced that it would definitely hold his weight, enjoyed the zipwire immensely.
Although it was quite cruel, they decided not to tell Thor what it was, instead just strapping him in and telling him to hold on. It can't have been a particularly pleasant surprise to find himself being jerked down a wire towards a lake, but Thor appreciated the joke anyway.
Clint, being the showoff he was, went down like superman, which Natasha beat by going down upside-down. Bruce, by contrast, stayed the right way up and screamed the whole way.
Once Sam got down, he shook himself, laughing, "It felt like my suit should have been saving me."
Wanda looked calm and collected as she got harnessed in, but screamed like hell the whole way down, once again being the opposite to Pietro who looked terrified at first but once he got down tried to convince Steve and Peter to do it again like 700 times. They did, although Peter liked it less and less with each go (they didn't do 700, they did three), as it went against all of his instincts.
Steve was worried about Bucky, wondering whether it might feel too much like falling, but once Bucky got down he grinned and said, "It is a bit like falling, but far more fun." Vision's only comment was how uncomfortable the suit was.
The activities being over for the day, the team was given some down time in which they could eat and chat and generally have fun before sleeping, although they drew the line at Thor chopping down an entire tree for firewood. Since none of them except Sam had actually been camping before, they took the chance to roast s'mores over the campfire. There were significantly less s'mores than anticipated, since Pietro and Thor ate an ungodly amount of marshmallows, quoting their metabolism when confronted about it.
Sam and Clint used the opportunity to have a competition 'to see who was the alpha bird', which involved a lot of showing off and combat. Natasha won. No-one was particularly sure how, but she did.
Then it was time to sleep. The tents were quite small, much smaller than you'd want, and two had been packed, one for each team.
In the middle of the night, a shrill scream came from the tent belonging to the Wii Not Fit team. Preparing for battle, everyone jerked awake, quickly exiting their tent to see what was the matter. Vision was tending the fire, looking completely uninterested in whatever calamity had befallen the rest of his team. Wanda, Sam and Tony had crawled out of the tent, still yelping occasionally, and pointed to the tent in explanation.
"There's a spider in there!" Sam announced, "Peter, you're SpiderMan, get it out!" Peter shook his head vehemently.
"Peter you attracted them with your spideryness get it out!" Tony yelped, his voice a bit higher than usual.
"I don't like spiders," Peter muttered morosely. Steve took pity on him and got the spider out (it was no bigger than a coin, honestly guys, grow up), before suddenly looking around.
"Shoot," he swore, "we lost the assassins!" Everyone else checked to find that, yeah, Clint and Natasha were missing. What followed was a late night search of the entire camp, before they finally found them casually sleeping in a tree. Tired and grumpy, everyone returned to their tent, when Tony suddenly piped up,
"What if there's more spiders in the night?"
"Then you deal with it!" replied Steve.
"You don't want us to die of fright, do you? See, your tent has Bucky, he'll get rid of spiders, but we have no-one. The only solution is for you to spend the night in our tent."
Steve saw no reason to argue with the obvious ploy to get him and Tony to share, so he lugged his sleeping bag across to Tony's tent and stayed there for the night.
The next day, bright and early, they were awoken by Madeline and Dan, who still managed to sound chirpy at nine o'clock, they had to be robots. The plan for today, they were told as they ate porridge and tried not to throw it back up, was team games.
"To wake you all up," everybody groaned in unison, even Vision, "we're going to play Earthball!"
In camp, they play a slightly different version of Earthball. Everybody has to lie on their back with their legs in the air, each team lined up opposite each other with their legs facing each other, and a gigantic orange ball which is so luminous it could be radioactive is released, and they have to kick it backwards and forwards to each other without it touching the floor.
It is not an activity grown superheroes participate in often. Despite this, it was the activity that Bruce had enjoyed most so far, and Sam's only comment was, "I love camping!" as he attempted to get it out of Thor's reach. Thor, so far, had hit the ball nearly every time, so a new rule was created that you couldn't hit it twice in a row. The only consequence was that Steve hit it at Thor more, since he couldn't do anything about it, and, in a show of his more competitive side which he usually hid, Steve hit it so high and so hard that it was nearly impossible to get.
Tony felt the need to keep up the pretense of hating everything, muttering, "They're really on a budget, aren't they," but he secretly enjoyed it, and was much happier than he had been yesterday, which could be something to do with getting to sleep with Steve.
Natasha made it her mission in life to hit Clint in the head with every ball that she kicked, but since Clint had good enough reflexes it was an interesting game of dodgeball. Wanda spent the entire time wondering what exactly was going on, a sentiment Bucky agreed with, although they both gave it their all, whatever 'it' was. Vision sighed dramatically as he joined in. Pietro was nearly impossible to play against, as he hit it so fast that no-one knew they were going to be hit by it until it was in their face, so Natasha enlisted his help in hitting Clint, which he readily gave.
Thor dared Peter to stick himself to the ball, which did not go well for either Peter or Sam, who he landed on.
Rather than another pointless exercise to show physical strength, the next game was Crossing the Line. Everybody is split into pairs, and a rope is put on the floor. One person in the pair stands on one side of the rope, and the other on the other side. Without touching each other, they have to get the other person to cross to their side of the rope. The point, although they aren't told this until after the game has ended, is that the winner could either be the one who persuaded the other across, or the one who gave in to get the other to shut up. It's meant to be a lesson in competition versus cooperation. The Avengers accepted it as a lesson in who can be the most threatening without touching them.
Steve, having learnt these lessons in the army, knew the point of the exercise. He was placed opposite Tony, and had every intention of crossing the line since he knew that that was the type of person he was, but he waited until Tony had blabbered on for ages before crossing, just to annoy Tony. Thor was against Vision, who had a very good point and was very persuasive, but Thor, being the epitome of stubborn, refused to move, so eventually Vision gave in.
Clint tried being a sneaky bastard and threw the rope over Natasha, but all that she had to do was glare at him and raise an eyebrow and he was across the line in seconds. Peter used his web on Sam, claiming that that wasn't actually touching him, but in the end Sam got Peter over onto his side by using logic, a trick Bruce tried against Bucky but failed as Bucky just stood there in silence until Bruce was unnerved enough to cross. Pietro was across the line in seconds, although he complained to anyone that would listen (ie: no-one), that Wanda using her mind control was unfair.
The final game that they played before leaving was alien invasion. Each group was split into three, two noisy people, two quiet people and two others. Each team was given an egg and some equipment such as scissors, sellotape and toilet roll, and had to wrap the egg up so that it could be dropped from a tree and not break. The catch was that two people were blindfolded, and they were the only ones allowed to touch the egg or equipment, the two noisiest people weren't allowed to speak so they had to convey their ideas through body language, and the two quietest people had to tell the blindfolded people what to do.
Scared Hitless went first. Steve and Pietro were the 'noisy' ones, since Pietro never shut up and Steve was a master of tactics, Bucky and Bruce were the 'quiet' ones and Natasha and Peter were blindfolded. The beginning minutes were filled by beautiful charades from Steve and Pietro, until Pietro got annoyed with people not understanding and began to do everything superspeed, which didn't help at all. Steve didn't have a problem looking stupid, an understood Pietro's actions more than most, so his charades were generally interpretable. Bruce had some good ideas, although he didn't like ordering Natasha about as he felt that she would get him for it later, and it was pointless trying to get Peter to do anything as he had given up early on and was trying to make daisy chains with blades of grass. Natasha was quite good at finding things, but unsure on what to do with them. It wasn't until Bucky began to talk that any progress was made, as he had surprisingly good ideas and Natasha could do them easily.
Then it was the Wii Not Fit team's go. Tony and Thor were, for obvious reasons, the noisiest. Vision and Sam were quietest and Wanda and Clint were blindfolded. Tony had absolutely no idea how to go about expressing his ideas, and nobody was quite sure whether Thor was swatting away a fly or explaining things. Vision had some good ideas, but Sam was too busy watching Thor and Tony in confusion to contribute much. Clint had absolutely no idea what was going on, and Wanda kept hitting him in her desperate attempts to find things. In the end, Wanda had some suspiciously good ideas considering the team was too busy bickering to give any, and Steve was pretty sure that she was reading Tony's mind.
Despite their best efforts, both eggs cracked, so the Scared Hitless team won based on how much better their team had performed. Then, in a flurry of putting tents away and packing up, they were loaded back onto the coach and back to civilisation.
Tony did kiss all of his gadgets and a bottle of beer when he got back, but the mission was judged to be a success anyway. Being forced to sleep huddled up for warmth in a tent together, and then having to wrap an egg, does that to people.