Archive of Our Own ^beta

“We’re supposed to be looking for Thor,” Steve chided when he walked into the common room to find Clint kicked back on the sofa. They’d had a long, grueling battle with Loki, who unleashed alligators upon the Central Park Zoo and had spirited Thor away to who knew where.

“Jarvis has algorithms or whatever for that,” Clint said, waving a dismissive hand. “What do you want me to do, climb the Empire State Building like King Kong and scan the city for him? My eyes aren’t that good.”

Onscreen, Dora the Explorer turned to address Clint and Steve. “Can you help us climb the tree? Move your arms to help us climb!”

Dora paused, only she didn’t start moving after a moment of silence. She stood there waiting until Clint heaved a sigh and, perched on the back of the couch, mimed climbing.

Dora and Boots began climbing alongside Clint. Clint pointed out Boots could have climbed faster if he took his boots off.

When Clint paused, both Dora and Boots paused, too. “We need your help, Hawkeye!” Dora said.

Clint muttered a string of curses at Loki, but continued, and Steve joined in.

“Fantastico!” Dora cheered when she and Boots reached the top of the tree.

They found a familiar figure nestled in the branches, apparently having fallen there. It was Thor, only he was drawn in a similar cartoon style to Dora and Boots.

“Wake up!” shouted Dora, and Thor awoke with a gasp.

“I know you,” Thor said. “You are Dora, the skilled explorer. Midgardian children relish in the tales of your adventures.”

Thor said it with complete sincerity, despite having traveled across realms himself, and was genuinely pleased to meet her. 

“Hola Thor!” Dora said, just as cheerily.

Thor looked around, noting the bright, cartoon landscape and his own cartoonish body. “Loki must have transported me here. Where is my hammer?”

Thor held out his hand, but Mjolnir was nowhere to be seen. Dora turned to the camera again. “Do you see Mjolnir?”

She waited again, until Steve said “No.” 

Clint, meanwhile, muttered “Usually they actually put what Dora’s looking for onscreen, but of course, Loki…”

He trailed off, having undoubtedly sat through too many Dora episodes with his own children. 

Thor frowned. “Usually Mjolnir comes when called.”

“Maybe she’s stuck!” Boots suggested.

“Will you help us find Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir?” Dora asked the audience. Steve nodded, determined, and Dora and Boots threw their arms up. “Great!”

“I know not where Mjolnir lies, nor what is preventing her from coming to me,” said Thor.

“Who do we ask when we don’t know which way to go?” Dora asked.

“Map!” Dora and Boots called, and their sentient map came out to sing a song. Map unfolded to show a basic landscape, and Thor remarked that Map only showed a smidgen of the nine realms.

“To find Thor’s hammer, we first need to go to the field of storms. Next, we need to travel over through the icy caves. And finally, we need to go to the rainbow bridge. Say it with me! Storms, caves, rainbow bridge! Storms, caves, rainbow bridge!”

Map kept repeating it until Clint and Steve dutifully echoed it with him, even though Steve was a master tactician.

“Vamonos! Let’s go to the field!” Dora headed off, Boots did a cartwheel, and Thor strode alongside them, smiling like he was actually enjoying himself.

When they got to the field, gray clouds with frowning faces were unleashing rain upon the field.

Thor frowned. “I did not summon this storm. Not even Asgard has sentient clouds.”

“We need something to block the rain! Let’s ask Backpack!” Dora said. The purple backpack she always wore suddenly had cartoon eyes and a mouth and sang a song about holding what they needed.

“What do we need for the rain?” Backpack asked. “A hammer?”

“Not Mjolnir.” Thor said sadly, for it was an ordinary hammer.

Backpack offered more items “A Teddy bear, or an umbrella?”

“Umbrella.” Clint said.

“Right! You use an umbrella to shield yourself from the rain!” Backpack beamed.

“Do you ever use your shield as an umbrella?” Clint turned to Steve.

Thor opened the umbrella, which was patterned with lightning bolts, above himself, Dora and Boots.

The clouds grumbled, and rain poured down harder.

“We have bested you!” Thor says. “Wait until I get my hammer, and I’ll show you a real storm!”

They stopped to offer headphones to Fiona the Filly, who was scared of the sound of rain (Clint joked that Fiona could hide her head in the flowerpot Backpack carried).

“We need to blow the clouds away!” Dora exclaimed, once Fiona had her headphones. “Come on, blow!”

Self-consciously, Steve approached the giant television screen and blew on it. Onscreen, Cartoon Thor heaved mighty breaths with gusto, but Dora said they had to blow harder. Clint choked back a laugh.

If Tony were there, he would have been cracking joke after joke. Clint barely held it together.

“Rapido!” Dora exclaimed and Clint eventually blew as one would with a birthday cake.

The clouds blew away, leaving the scene colorful again, and Thor beamed as bright as the sun. “Thank you, my friends.”

“What comes next? The icy caves or the rainbow bridge?” Dora waited until Clint answered and said “That’s right! The icy caves!”

“Let’s go!” Boots skipped ahead but ended up riding on Thor’s shoulders as they ventured to the icy caves.

“Brrr. It’s chilly!” Boots shivered, and Backpack had them pick a log to make a fire.

By this time, the rest of the Avengers had wandered in. Tony seemed between facepalming and heckling the television, while Natasha watched, expressionless, as Thor, Dora and Boots traveled through the cave.

They made it through the icy caves without a single mention of Frost Giants. They had to melt a path through an ice wall, and Thor mourned the absence of Mjolnir, which could have easily shattered their obstacles.

“Finally, the rainbow bridge!” Thor beat Dora to the announcement the next time.

The rainbow bridge wasn’t quite like the bifrost- it was made from different color planks, and Steve and Clint had to help fill in the missing planks in the rainbow pattern. Dora taught Spanish the whole while- red was rojo, blue was azul, yellow was amarillo, and so on.

At last, the bridge was complete, and they trotted across to find a fox in a bandit mask reaching for Mjolnir.

“Swiper, no swiping! Swiper, no swiping!” Dora and Boots cried, holding out a hand.

Thor chuckled. “You must be worthy to lift Mjolnir,” he said, grabbing his hammer and lifting it high in the air. Lightning arced down to where Thor held Mjolnir aloft.

“Aw, man!” Swiper groaned, and started to slink off. Thor hollered for him to come back and fight, but Swiper was gone already, and Mjolnir suddenly started talking.

"Thanks for finding me, Thor."

Thor nodded, but said "Usually you come to me."

"I was tired." Mjolnir said, with the hammer equivalent of a shrug. 

"Then I shall put you to bed." Thor declared- the Avengers had caught Thor tucking Mjolnir in before, even sitting it in a high chair that Tony swore the tower never had before.

Mjolnir sighed and settled in Thor's arms, not appearing up to smashing at the moment.

“Thank you, Dora.” Thor said. “You are truly a great explorer.”

Dora and Boots started dancing around singing “We did it! We did it! We did it! Hooray! Lo Hicimos! We did it!”

They kept singing about the storm, the icy caves and the rainbow bridge, and then “We helped the mighty Thor find Mjolnir… Yay! Wahoo! Hooray! We did it!”

Thor beamed and danced along… and on and on. 

“See? It’s not a party without me.” Tony said, eventually joining in. Dora and Boots looped the we did it part until everyone participated. Natasha busted out some ballet steps, Steve did an incredibly awkward dance, and Bruce did a slow shuffle.

Thor bowed grandly, as if he’d attended a grand ball with Dora, before holding his hammer high. “‘This was a fun adventure, Dora, but I must return to my team.”

“It’s great to go home!” Dora nodded. “Boots and I are going home, too.”

Dora and Boots waved goodbye, and suddenly Thor was out of the TV and real again, standing with his team in the living room. Mjolnir no longer had a face.

“Wow, Loki really knows how to torment people.” Clint muttered, no longer dancing. “Watching Dora is bad enough, but living through it… yeesh. I’m glad he didn’t do that to me.”

“You were enjoying yourself, weren’t you?” Tony jabbed a finger at Thor. 

“Aye, Dora is an accomplished adventurer,” Thor inclined his head, and Tony stared, unable to tell if he was joking.

“That was mild, for Loki’s pranks.” Thor said. “I would not mind visiting Dora again, sometime.”

Tony gave an exaggerated shudder. “Don’t let Loki hear you say that, or he might send all of us there next time.”