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what's the deal with animals as friends?

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To say the least, the large, accidentally-conspicuous white van was crowded.

But if one were to be in this specific situation, crowded would be a laughable adjective.

In the front seat, driving, was Sam, after being persuaded to take his wings off. He'd been a little indignant at first, yes, but after reasons like "I don't think many people are accustomed to seeing human birds" and "Tony will take care of watching the skies"(which, of course, pissed him off a little), he begrudgingly pressed the button that caused the armor to fall off him in one clean swoop. It was now stashed between the driver's and passenger seat, taking up the little space that it provided.

Steve was in the passenger seat, sitting stoicly. He hadn't moved in the long time they'd been on the road(almost seven hours, with about thirty more to go), and Cara, in her spot in the first row of seats, wondered how he could have the most room out of anyone and not take advantage of it.

With Tony in the sky, and Sam and Steve up front, that brought down the number of remaining passengers to nine. On any other road trip, this wouldn't have been a problem, as the van seated twelve people. But when you were taking a fully grown, ridiculously built men with you, it caused a bit of discomfort.

The front row consisted of Thor and Clint, with Cara squashed in the middle. She couldn't stand it, his cape protruded into her own shoulders(he'd insisted on putting it back on), and tended to lean away, into Clint, whose tips of his arrows practically poked her in the eyes, sending her flying back the other way. It was back and forth like this, and had been for the past seven hours.

The "swing seat," as they called it, was the single, individual chair that was placed in the second row, creating space for someone to walk through to the last row. They'd tried to convince Thor to sit there, as he was the biggest of all of them, but Nat had given everyone the stink eye, and they'd backed off.

"I don't feel like getting nice and cozy with you boys," she'd sneered, settling into her more spacious area. "Or you, Cara, for that matter."

All that had gone through her mind was, ugh, rude, but she should have been making a plan. A plan to dive into the first empty seat that popped up. The consequence? Get stuck between Goldilocks and the Girl on Fire.

The middle row, apart from Nat's seat, was occupied by Wanda and Pietro, who had fallen asleep on each other soon after they'd gotten the vehicle moving.

Which left Peter, Scott, and Bruce to spread out along the four-seat back row. Of course, as they had more space, they hadn't complained. In fact, they'd been practically silent on the whole ride back to New York.

Probably fell asleep, Cara thought jealously, and wished she felt comfortable enough going to sleep in the middle of such intimidating men. But who knows, maybe they'd end up taking pictures and putting them on Twitter, or something. And then she'd be famous for just that.

Happy thoughts, Cara, happy thoughts, she scolded herself.

Besides, she'd already tried to sleep--multiple times. First, she thought Thor's cape looked soft enough to use as a pillow or blanket, and tipped her head down to get comfortable.

She'd just closed her eyes when Thor's booming voice had interrupted her almost-slumber.

"Cara? What are you doing? Do you feel ill?"

"No, I'm just hella tired," she had groaned, and tried to use Clint's shoulder for a headrest, which hadn't lasted more than a moment.

"You know," he'd whispered into her ear, "I would let you stay like that, but I have to warn you: I've still got some explosive arrows, and you being this close to them might set them off."

Cara's head was off his shoulder in an instant. "What?!" She almost shrieked, horrified. "You have explosives in here, and they could go off any second? What kind of person are you?"

If it were possible, Clint would've been doubling over in laughter. But, seeing as he didn't have much room to do that, his shoulders just shook violently with amusement, his hand flying to cover his aching stomach muscles.

"No, of course not," he wheezed. "I wouldn't do that."

It took Cara a second to figure out exactly what had happened. When she understood what had been done, she rolled her eyes and scowled deeply. Giving him a hard shove in the shoulder, she muttered angrily, "I hate you."

So, for the next three hours, Cara had been restless, yet overcome with fatigue.

Not the best combination.

"Steve?" She whined, her heavy eyelids somehow staying open.

"Yeah?" He answered peering back at her to see just how tired she really was. "You should get some sleep, Cara. You look exhausted."

But she shook her head. "I have a question."

He considered it for a second, still giving her that worried boyfriend look, but then nodded. "Ask away."

She grinned, and a giggle burst out of her lips, fatigue turning into some state of looniness. "Why do you have so many animal friends?"

"Why what?" Steve's eyes were wide with shock. Sam's hands slipped a little on the steering wheel, regaining control a millisecond later, but it was obvious he'd been affected by her question.

"I mean," she smirked, "if you want a pet, why don't you just buy one?"

Steve was still recovering from her unexpected question, and didn't say anything.

So Cara continued.

"You've got Sam, who's a pigeon--"

"Falcon," was his grunted reply.

"Whatever. Nat, she's Black Widow. Like, the spider."

"And?" She challenged. Cara gulped, and moved on.

"Oh, and then Scott's the pesky insect that won't go away: he's the ant. And Clint, Hawkeye, another bird."

Steve rolled his eyes at her, the corners of his lips turning up in amusement. "Cara, you need to go to sleep."

Nat's voice came into the conversation. "Wait, I have a question, too."

"And what might that be, Natasha?" Steve swiveled his gaze to look at his friend.

She shrugged. "I was just wondering why we didn't tell Fury we were doing all of this. I mean, if we had a helicarrier, we wouldn't have to go through this long ass road trip, we'd be back in New York in no time."

"Why didn't we tell Fury? Because--" Steve paused, then literally smacked his forehead. "I am so dumb."

"Well, at least we can agree on something," she smirked, and gestured to a watch-looking device on her wrist. "I already contacted him. We're gonna trade off soon, in two more hours, or so."

"You already got a hold of him?" Steve looked a little disappointed. "Without telling us?"

"What?" She shrugged. "I want to get back to the city. And besides, I was getting downright sick of Cara's damn rambling."