Author's Note: Sorry for the delay! It took me a while to get a good start to this story, but I'm hoping it will work out the way I plan!
Enjoy!
I own NOTHING!
"Oh! I bet you can't guess this one! What is the only letter that does not appear in The Periodic Table?" Tony smiled as he looked from Pepper to Natasha.
"Why did we bring him?" Nat sighed rubbing her eyes.
"Because it's my jet that brought us here, and it's my driver and my girlfriend that you wanted to bring with you!" Tony reminded the assassin. "Now answer my question!"
"It's J" Pepper replied looking up from her phone. "J is the only letter that does not appear in The Periodic Table."
Tony stared at her, "Did you look up the answer on your phone?"
"Yes I did, you asked a question and I answered it. You did not specify how I should go about answering it."
"Well refresh your Wikipedia, because I just changed the name of my element to Jawanamantium."
"I thought the committee rejected your element."
"Oh, so you're just going straight for the gut now?"
"Hey, don't make me come back there!" Happy called back to the bickering couple.
The four of them had left Stark Tower at around five that morning, and they were already arriving at their first destination—in Santa Clara, California—a little after noon.
"I think you passed it." Natasha informed Happy.
"No I didn't! The GPS says it's coming up in 300 feet."
"Well the GPS is wrong, because 1227 Cavalcade Drive was back there."
"Oh Cripes, did they give us a damn Tom Tom?" Tony groaned reaching up front and snatching the device off of the windshield. "Come on Happy, you should know better than to use one of these things!" He rolled down his window and threw the GPS out.
Happy muttered a curse and turned the rental car around.
"I hope she's home." Pepper said as they pulled into the driveway of a charming little yellow house. Tony didn't reply as he hopped out of the car and jogged to the trunk to retrieve her wheelchair. Considering that she had a wounded right thigh and a casted left ankle, she really had no other choice but to accept Tony's offer of getting her a chair to use—unless she would have rather been carried everywhere by her more than willing boyfriend.
"Tony, stay in the car." Nat ordered, taking control of the chair once Pepper was properly seated.
"What? Why?"
"Because we're trying to get her to come with us, not scare her away." The Russian replied as they made their way up the walk. Tony made a face at her back and begrudgingly climbed back into the car, finding that taking a quick nap would be better than arguing.
"Okay, do we know what we're going to say?" Pepper asked quietly after Natasha rang the doorbell.
"Not a clue, but I think if we just tell her—" She was cut off when the front door swung open to reveal a small brunette woman.
"Hi! Can I help you?" She greeted them with a confused smile. The two redheads hesitated slightly before Pepper spoke up.
"Are you Jane Foster?" She blurted, sounding slightly panicked. Natasha tried not to chuckle at her forwardness.
"Y-yes I am." The woman replied looking between the two strangers on her doorstep, and then behind them at the large SUV in her driveway. "Is something wrong?"
"No! Not at all." Natasha assured her. "We actually have good news!"
"Oh, I'm not interested in converting, thank you." Jane went to close the door, but Nat put her hand on it to stop her.
"Wait! We're not Jehovah's Witnesses!" She exclaimed.
"Nor are we Mormons." Pepper chimed in, earning a strange look from Nat and Jane. "Just thought I should clear that up." She shrugged.
"We're here about a Thor Odinson." Natasha continued, sighing with relief when Jane released the door.
"Thor? Is…" Jane swallowed, trying not to get too excited, "Where is he? Is he on Earth? Is he okay?"
"He's fine! He's in New York." Pepper told her with a small smile. "That's actually why we're here."
/
"I don't understand why there are so many choices." Steve sighed as he, Hawkeye, and Thor all stood and stared at the large wall before them.
"I never knew that such a spectrum could exist." Thor mused.
"I think we should go with blue." Hawkeye said with a shrug.
"But what shade?" Steve asked, "There's navy, cobalt, steel, cerulean, aquamarine, denim…"
"Sapphire, indigo, periwinkle, baby…" Thor continued for him as he stared at the labels.
"Navy." Clint growled going for a pack.
"No…it's too dark." Steve disagreed. "I don't think any of the blues would really work. What about red…dark red…?"
"Yes. I like dark red!" Thor nodded.
Steve went to pick up the pack, but stopped with a small hiss. "See, I don't know about red now either…it'll be hard to find stuff to go with it."
"What do you mean?" Clint demanded, "Red goes with everything!"
"No, not really."
"Just pick a damn color!"
"It's not that easy!"
"They're just plates! People will be eating off of them! They won't care what color they are!" Barton practically yelled in the middle of the party store.
"What about green?" Thor asked from behind them, holding up a pack of dark green paper plates.
"Those'll work." Rogers said quickly, grabbing about ten packs and throwing them in the cart.
/
"So, he's been on Earth for about six months, and I'm only hearing about it now?" Jane asked incredulously.
The group was back aboard the Stark Jet, making their way down to Central Texas. "We weren't really aware of you or your significance to Thor until recently." Pepper told her apologetically. "He's been talking about you so much lately. It's quite obvious that he misses you."
"Yeah, he's a step away from crying every time he sees someone get hit by a car on TV." Tony muttered as he walked away from the minibar and sat next to Pepper, scotch in hand. He smirked cockily when Jane gave him a confused scowl, "Yeah, I can hack into hospital files."
"What Mr. Stark is trying to say," Natasha growled, glaring at the billionaire, "Is that you are very important to Thor, and we think that he would really like to see you again."
"Wait, he doesn't know I'm coming?"
"Well…no…it's supposed to be a surprise." Pepper explained. "But it's okay! He'll be so excited to see you!"
/
"WHAT IS THIS TREACHERY?" Thor roared, "I asked you to bring me a sweet dessert! And you bequeath this…this monstrosity upon me? What do you take me for?"
"Sir, it's red velvet cake." The woman at the bakery told him.
"It is a little bitter." Bruce hesitantly informed her. "Could we maybe sample the chocolate?" The woman glared at the two men before going into the back of the bakery.
"Thank you for joining us on our mission Dr. Banner." Thor patted his teammate's back. "It is nice to have a man who is familiar with this confounding planet along to assist us."
"Oh, it's not a problem." Bruce waved him off. "I thought it would be rather entertaining to not only help plan Tony Stark's birthday party, but to also watch you three do it."
As if on cue, Clint and Steve entered the shop, each of them carrying two handfuls of giant foil balloons of multiple shapes and colors.
"We didn't know what theme to go with so we thought we'd choose a few." Hawkeye grunted trying to maneuver the balloons so that he could set down the large bags hanging from his arms.
"Is that a princess castle?" Bruce asked him as he took a handful off of his hands. "And I think that there's an Elmo one too…"
"What's an Elmo?" Steve asked.
"Uh…never mind…we're almost done here."
"Oh…I do like this!" Thor exclaimed his mouth stuffed with chocolate cake. "You have certainly redeemed yourself wench!" He pointed at the now very angry woman behind the counter.
"Could we get this done with the design on page thirty-two?" Bruce asked quickly, before the Asgardian could say another word. The woman glowered at him and nodded. "Thank you for all your help ma'am, we'll pick it up on Friday."
The four men gathered their belongings and walked out of the bakery. "Where to now?" Steve asked.
"Back to the tower!" Clint growled. "We've been to every party store in the city! I'm beat!" He went to stretch, but in doing so, he released a handful of about twenty balloons. The men stared up into the sky as the bright castles and other shapes floated away.
"Well there goes our Pretty Princess theme." Bruce deadpanned before climbing into the town car.
Sorry for the abrupt ending. It just seemed like the best stopping point for this chapter.
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