Hey, well, time for my first delve into the Avengers, a category I've been lurking around for a while now I must admit. Let me just make this clear from the start, this is not a Loki-falls-to-earth-and-the-Avengers-take-care-of-him fic, there are plenty of brilliant ones of those out there that are infinitely better than anything I could ever do. There is horsey-talk used, I will do my best to explain at the end of each chapter or by pm if someone wants me to, it is not essential to have any prior horse knowledge to understand an enjoy this. and last but not least, I do not own the Avengers or anything to do with the film/comics/tv series ect.

It was a quiet morning all-round for the Avengers, unassembled as they all were in the tower formerly known as Stark Tower, now the Avengers Tower. Thor had not returned from Asgard, Steve and Natasha were discussing fighting techniques and Clint, Bruce and Tony were playing a computer game on a holoscreen, or rather Bruce was awkwardly watching Tony thrash Clint at auto thieves, "It's cheating to hack the frame!".

All in all it was an unusually quiet day for the Avengers who were usually rushed off their feet with press conferences, government check-ups, training and god forbid crime fighting! So when JARVIS chimed "Avengers, Director Fury requests your attentions." an audible groan rippled around the room.

"damn, put him on the TV," grumbled Tony, "Does Nicky ever take a day off?"

"Statistically sir, since is first correspondence he has not sir."

"That was a rhetorical question JARVIS."

"My apologies, sir."

"I do-"

"If you two are quite finished, Stark, I have a situation for all of you to deal with." Interrupted the aptly named Director Fury.

"We're all here and listening, well, not Viking Barbie, but you know that." Snarked back Tony.

The SHIELD director closed his eyes and massaged his synapses, muttering what sounded suspiciously like 'this isn't worth it', "An Asgardian has landed."

Five pairs of ears pricked up, "Let me guess," started Steve, "It's not Thor."

"Spot-On Captain"

"And it's not Loki or there would be considerably more chaos going on."

"Hey," interrupted Tony, "If it was Reindeer Games he'd already be here, I still owe him a drink after all."

Fury ignored him and answered Steve "Right on again."

"Much as I hate to interrupt Steve's little guessing game," interjected Clint, "If it's not Thor and not Loki, who the hell is it?"

"That's what makes this situation even trickier."

"What is it? Nick, stop keeping us hanging on!" snapped Tony, getting bored.

"Well, it's, and there's no better way to put this, it's a horse." Director Fury looked suitable sheepish, as if he couldn't believe the words that just came out of his mouth.

For a moment, there was complete silence, then, one by one earth's mightiest heroes were consumed by breath-wrenching laughter, even Natasha, usually pokerfaced was howling with laughter.

"Good joke Nicky," chocked Tony after a few minutes, "but it's not April, it's December at the moment."

"Dammit Stark! I'm not playing around, this is serious! An Einstein-Rosenberg portal opened up and deposited a horse in Europe. We do not know whether it's landing here was a mistake or intentional but seeing how most things from up there seem to be we are currently regarding it as a threat."

The genius raised his hands in mock surrender "Ok, Ok then, so what the hell do you want us to do? We can't exactly keep a normal horse in the tower, let alone one you're presuming to be dangerous, this is New York after all."

"It is already at Manoir De Castelau, I do believe you know where that is, don't you Stark?"

Just a few short and very hectic hours later the avengers were cruising at 25000 feet in Tony's private jet, they were headed straight for the manor, that apparently had been bought for Pepper by Tony on a whim, according to Tony it possessed a runway so they wouldn't have to deal with French immigration.

"So Nicky," questioned Tony to the open comm link on the television screen in front of them, "when you say this is a horse, how horsey are we talking? Does this pony have four legs? Eight? Sixteen?"

The SHIELD director facepalmed, "It has four legs Stark, four legs, two eyes, a long face and is in other words a horse."

"Oh, 'cause from what I've read of the Norse fairytales, Asgardian animals are as screwed up as the people from there. So, has it been given a name yet?"

Once again a long suffering sigh, "No Stark, but if it is so important you can ask it when you get there..."

And with that Director Fury severed the connection, leaving the avengers to ask themselves how they were meant to ask a dumb animal it's name.

Nearly five hours later they stumbled out of the jet onto cracking tarmac, six hours was pretty fast for a transatlantic flight but it was still six hours too long for several very mortal feeling heroes who of course couldn't forget the fact that one amongst them caged a roaring rage monster that could destroy the small plane(and them) in seconds if he was provoked.

The manor, or rather French chateau was a typical 17th century French bourgeois building, Tony had actually bought it for himself on a whim (read he was drunk), the moment he had sobered up he had passed it onto Pepper in the guise of a one year anniversary/birthday present, she had turned it from a dilapidated wreck and given it back it's former glory, on the outside at least.

"Alright Kiddies, you can all pick your rooms later, I vote we find this damned pony and evaluate the treat it poses straight away."

With a small amount of light-hearted grumbling the others agreed and trooped after Tony as he strode of towards a small L-shaped building down the drive from the main house. When the restoration crew had informed him, via Pepper of course, that the roofless, crumbling shack was in fact an old-fashioned stable block he had had visions of sticking a few horses there to ride whenever they visited. Of course he had vetoed the idea from his brain the moment he met a horse, they were large, ugly, stank to high heaven and were as a general rule massively dangerous, he was still asking himself why so many women loved them.

The stables were stone and panelled with wood on the inside with brass fixtures and crimson painted metalwork (it had originally been green but after their run-in with Loki Tony had decided he did not want to see any more green and gold anywhere, those were now forbidden colours around him.

"So where is this animal then?" questioned Bruce as they stood in in the second corridor of the stables.

Almost in answer to his question a sharp whinny rang out, metal clattered on the cobbled floor and right in the end stable on the right a massive dark head appeared over the box door...

And straight into a clifhanger, because I know you all love them so much!
Facts:
Equestrianism is the only Olympic sport to involve animals and it is considered one of the worlds most dangerous sports in the world yet it remains one of very few sports to be practiced in nearly every country on earth.
A whinny is a high-pitched call made by a horse, usually to call out to other horses or people that may be out of its immediate vicinity.
People put metal or plastic "shoes" on the underside of horses feet to stop wear to the hoof, which is made of a substance much like human hair.