Merry Christmas! Why I am starting a multi-chapter Christmas fic nine days before Christmas is something only my Muse knows. She likes to do things like this to me. All I know is I love this idea to death and with Age of Ultron still so far away I need an Avenger's fix.
This story was born from the premise "What if The Avengers was a Christmas story?" and not "Can I rewrite The Avengers in Christmas-speak?" So I am reframing each of the Avengers as a particular holiday icon and setting the conflict around the North Pole. This is not just a rewrite. I am borrowing heavily from Whedon's excellent work but I am also adding exactly whatever else pleases me. Hopefully it will please you too.
Keep an eye out for parallels you never dreamed could be made! If you have an idea for one, review!
Disclaimer: I don't own The Avengers. Or Christmas, for that matter. This chapter quotes heavily from the movie.
Rating: A shade more kid-friendly than The Avengers. This is a Christmas story, after all…
Chapter One—Twas the Night before Christmas
It was Christmas Eve, and the North Pole was a madhouse. Not the North Pole people saw on maps; that was just a frozen silent patch of uninhabited tundra. The real North Pole, also known as Santa's workshop, was thousands of feet above it, suspended in the air like a castle on a cloud by a combination of magnetic waves and children's dreams. Tonight those dreams were stronger than ever, as children across the world dreamt of sugar-plums and tomorrow's presents, and the inhabitants of the North Pole were bustling about in a chaotic frenzy to make sure everything went exactly right on this, the most important day of the year.
Last minute presents were being wrapped and tagged, most of them for kids from the yearly list of pardons St. Nick bestowed on Naughty List kids. Elves were teleporting in from their reconnaissance station all over the world after a year of watching for children and keeping the existence of the North Pole hidden from adults. Reindeers and sleigh mechanics were double checking every nut and bolt of the sleigh and every inch of the launch pad. Mrs. Claus was hovering menacingly over everything, seemingly everywhere at once, nabbing elves who'd been working triple shifts and forcing them to go to bed. Everything was chaos, but so far nothing had gone wrong.
Oh, there were little things, like the folks in Legal complaining that a red and blue spider web suit was definitely a Halloween costume and should not be given out for Christmas; or the several hundred ant farms that had inexplicably shrunk to the size of a pins upon being tagged for a "Hank Pym." There was also the ongoing debate about whether it was appropriate to leave tritium in a stocking if owning tritium was illegal in the receiver's local area. These sort of problems occurred every year, and they would inevitably be fixed at the last possible moment by either St. Nick himself ("Absolutely no tritium is going in anybody's stocking, ever. This is Christmas, not Armageddon!") or Mrs. Claus ("Well, if they shrunk then you won't need as much paper for wrapping. Just put them all in one box.") and even, occasionally, Head Elf Phil ("—subsection 43, paragraph 2a, you'll see that costumes are perfectly legal as long as… Look, just wrap it up and put in the sleigh, okay?"). So everything was going well until one of the teleportation rigs the elves were coming in from started malfunctioning.
~o~o~
Mrs. Claus was resolving a packing dispute down on the lowest level of the North Pole when she got a call from Phil; she could glance out the floor-to-ceiling windows and see the world covered in ice below. She waved away both the elves she was talking to and turned on the communicator in the fluffy white ball of her Christmas hat. Installing those hatcomms had been a lifesaver; they were one of the few technological advances adopted recently at the Pole that nobody complained about.
"Mrs. Claus here."
"Maria, this is Phil. We have a problem up on T-level. I think you better come check it out. Both of you."
T-level was one of the highest, largest levels; it was where all the teleportation rigs were installed. Maria could not imagine any problem with the tele-rigs serious enough to drag St. Nick out of the Atrium when he was due to take off in twenty minutes. If worst came to worst she would rather leave a few elves stranded at their posts for the night than interrupt the night's tenuous schedule. On Christmas Eve the sleigh launch came first. Maria resisted the urge to tell Phil to deal with it himself—Phil was the most capable, level-headed elf she'd ever met. If he said it was serious… "Do you really want me to drag Nick up there?"
"Yes. Promptly, if possible."
Promptly, if possible. Maria snorted. That was as close to a demand as any elf at the Pole dared make of her, and Phil was the only elf who could regularly come that close without being reassigned to duty somewhere in New Zealand or the Sahara Desert. Maria was not a woman to be trifled with. She was St. Nick's right hand, and seemed to be nigh omnipresent. She was first ever holder of the title "Mrs. Claus" to not actually be married to Mr. Claus. She had gotten the position through sheer tenacious competence, and although elves gossiped about it and the World Holiday Council looked down their noses, neither she nor St. Nick paid any attention. St. Nick liked her because she got the job done and he didn't have to bother with any silly romance. Maria liked him because he let her do her job and had promised to hand over the title of "Santa Claus" to her when he retired in a couple of centuries. Together they made perhaps the least sentimental "couple" the North Pole had ever had in charge—but they were also the most devoted and most efficient. Maria knew this just as well as she knew that many people thought that Santa's Workshop ought to be a little more cheerful and a little less organized. Less organization, Maria thought, was exactly what got you things like malfunctioning transporters on Christmas Eve. "We'll be there. Keep me updated."
Within minutes Mrs. Claus, St. Nick and Head Elf Phil had convened on the staircase landing just above the Atrium. They continued upwards to T-Level without breaking pace.
"How bad is it?" asked St. Nick.
Phil looked unusually concerned. "That's the problem, sir. We don't know. Teleporter B4 went offline about forty-five minutes ago, and after we called Selvig it came back on and started absorbing most of the power out of Dream Catcher Four."
"So he screwed up fixing it?"
"He hadn't even touched it, sir. He hadn't got there yet. Spontaneous event."
Maria frowned. If this was a mechanical glitch it was the strangest one she'd ever seen. And to happen on Christmas Eve… Either this was incredibly bad luck (and if it was she'd be having a stern talk with some leprechauns come St. Patrick's Day), or someone was doing something they shouldn't be. She glanced at St. Nick for his reaction, but he was as cool and unreadable as ever. "Why didn't Selvig shut it down?" she asked.
"He tried; the power disturbance just got bigger. I sent someone down to DC4 to check the engines but that was a dead end. That's when I called for an evacuation of everyone working above T-Level and in the DC4 engine rooms. I left Selvig on site along with the last elf to come through the rig. He can brief you on what's been happening."
"How long until evac is complete?" asked Nick.
"Twenty minutes."
"Do better."
"Yes sir." Phil turned around and headed back downstairs, speaking urgently into his hatcomm. "Get me two lifts for levels five and…"
St. Nick turned to Maria. "I want you to get anybody not working on evac up to level eight and bring the Phase 2 materials down to a safer level. If this power disruption starts having spillover effect on the DC4 engine I don't want it affecting those toys."
"Nick, is that really a priority? If there's a risk of engine failure we should be getting closer to the ground, evacuating this year's presents, and securing the Hourglass. It's only two hours to midnight. You still have a sleigh to catch."
"Turn the Hourglass around again if you're worried about time, Maria, but get it done. I want every piece of Phase Two off of level eight."
Maria's toned frosted slightly. "Yes, sir." She turned on her own hatcomm. "This is Mrs. Claus to Sedgwick. Patch me through to…"
~o~o~
St. Nick was not, perhaps, the best name for the current owner of the position of Santa Claus. Nick had been his name before he took the position, although the addition of "St." was certainly pushing the limits of believability. It was better than Kris Kringle or Santa Claus, though, which were both unbearably cheerful sounding. Contrary to popular belief at the North Pole, Nick could be cheerful, but he reserved it for children. Certain people (read: the World Holiday Council) often questioned how such a stoic, silent man got to be Santa Claus, but no one had ever pried the reason out of him. Nick considered his motivations for becoming Santa Claus to be on a need-to-know basis, and as far as he was concerned, nobody needed to know. What mattered was that he was good at his job.
Nick cast his one good eye around level four as he entered the huge transport room, looking for Selvig, the North Pole's head technical specialist. "Talk to me, Selvig."
"B4 is misbehaving."
Nick didn't frown, but the crinkling of his brow made his displeasure evident. Selvig was older than dirt, smarter than hell and one of very few people at the North Pole who were not intimidated by him. Nick suspected this wasn't so much due to any inherent bravery as to a complete obliviousness to anything not made of mechanical parts and run on steam. "Is that supposed to be funny?"
"It's not funny at all. B4 isn't supposed to be behaving. It's like it suddenly has a mind of its own."
"When can you pull the plug?"
"I already have. It just keeps turning back on. At this point I'm not sure even shutting down DC4 would do the trick. The telerig keeps throwing off interference: magnetic fields, temperature swings—did you notice how cold it is in here? It's nothing dangerous though…"
"Cold can be dangerous," Nick said dryly, thinking of the North Pole's last run in with the Abominable Snowman. Nick analyzed the situation—he had more questions than options, but he intended to get them answered. "Where's the elf that came through it?"
"The spook? Hiding somewhere, as usual."
Nick frowned at the slangy nickname for recon elves but decided he didn't have time to reproach the mechanic. "Elf! Report."
A small spry brown-haired elf dropped down from some perch in the air above and stood at attention. The number of silenced bells on his uniform showed that he was a high-ranking recon worker. St. Nick recognized him; he was not just a spook, he was one of Phil's special operatives. They had met several times before, mostly when the elf had gone AWOL or pulled some insubordinate stunt. If he wasn't such a good operative Nick would have demoted him to Paint-Dryer or Paper-Cutter or something a long time ago.
"Clint Barton, at your service, sir." The elf's face held an ever-so-slight grin. Clint had to know that Nick recognized him—he was just being cheeky.
"What were you doing way up there?" Nick asked.
"Analyzing the situation. I observe things better from afar."
"Well, have you seen anything useful?"
"Everything was normal until a minute or so after I stepped out. The rig just shut down. When it restarted, though, it didn't actually open. It doesn't lead anywhere, or at least it won't let anything through." The elf plucked a candy cane from the fold of his hat, gestured for Nick to step to his left, and tossed it lazily at the tele-rig. It pinged horrifically as the candy cane ricocheted off of thin air and zoomed through the spot Nick had just been standing to the opposite end of the room. Nick heard a loud crack as it shattered on impact with the wall. Clint continued his report. "I don't think it could be anything I did coming through, or anybody who came through before me today. I went over the in-flow records: nobody brought any foreign substances through, nobody had trouble on their last mission, nobody had been sick. We could go up to Medical and do some tests to see if someone ate radioactive candy, but honestly I don't think this has anything to do with the people who've already come through."
Nick glanced at the offending tele-rig. It was, like each other rig, a tube of crystal and copper bent to form an arch, six or seven feet tall and nearly that in width to accommodate anything they wanted to transport in. A square copper finished pad secured it to the floor and concealed the working just below floor level. Selvig had opened a hatch to get below and was bustling about in the small space while chattering away to the few folks left in the DC4 engine room, looking more intrigued than concerned. Nick could see several crystal filaments in the hatch sparking and pulsing randomly, as well as a thin layer of frost covering all the copperworks. The crystal finishing on the arch was glowing; the rig was clearly overheating, despite the considerable chill in the room.
When Nick had finished his inspection, Clint spoke again. "Whatever the problem is, I don't think it's anything on this side, sir."
"On this side?"
The elf shrugged, as if his meaning was obvious. "Tele-rigs are doors to the rest of the world, right? Doors open from both sides."
And that was when it happened.
~o~o~
Four levels above the transport room, Mrs. Claus was supervising the loading of Nick's priceless Phase 2 project into makeshift drop-tubes that would take them safely down to the storage bay near the loading dock, when the entire level rumbled underneath her feet. The realization that every elf in the room was watching her tore her mind away from T-level and back to her own. "Is everything moved?"
"We have all the blueprints, ma'am, but we're still working on the toys."
"Go faster." She turned on her hatcomm. "Phil, did you feel that?"
Phil was two levels below her, chasing the last of the elves out of Legal and down the stairs to the lower Atrium level. From the balcony he could see that most of the bulbs on the Atrium Tree had just shattered. "Yeah. I'm sending a team up to T-Level to check on them."
~o~o~
The rumbling in the rest of the North Pole was nothing compared to the earsplitting sound that shook T-Level. The entire row of tele-rigs lit up with power and blew out one after another in a symphony of shattered crystal. Nick scuttled away from B4 as it grew brighter, catching sight of Clint hauling Selvig out of the rig's hatch and backing away on the other side. The last working rig blew—and then B4 exploded so forcefully that Nick stumbled backwards several steps.
The lights were down, but the residual glow from millions of pieces of shattered crystal threw enough light for Nick to see a lone figure standing were tele-rig B4 used to be.
It seemed to be somewhat smaller than an elf but grew as Nick watched until he wasn't sure what its original size could have been. Hooded and cloaked, with dark eyes and a pale pristine face, it looked similar to a human adult. That was impossible, though; it had been thousands of years since adults believed in the North Pole, and even when they had none had been audacious enough to try and break in. Besides, this figure had such an odd look to it—not human, not elf, but something else. It was holding a glowing spear.
Nick heard the patter of many pairs of elven feet and knew someone (probably Phil) had sent a team to find out what happened. He put out a hand and waved urgently for them to stand down. Raising his voice, he called out to the mysterious figure. "Sir, please put down the spear."
For a moment, the stranger looked confused. Perhaps hijacking a North Pole tele-rig left a person disoriented. Out of the corner of his eye Nick saw the team of elves creep closer.
Then the stranger attacked. His spear wove through the air faster than sleet and more silent than snow. Nick saw it coming his way and lunged out of the way. A blast of magic—or energy, it was hot—skewered past him, catching the tail of his great red longcoat. To Nick's horror the affected part turned black, as if splashed by ink, and within seconds the material had faded to grey and crumbled into dust, not even leaving a frayed string behind.
Nick rolled to his feet and looked around for his elves, and for the attacker. He immediately caught sight of three elves taking cover behind the burnt out control panel of a tele-rig. He joined them.
"Sir, our tranquilizers have no effect on him."
That's lovely, Nick thought. How could he stop this maniac? He glanced at the frightened elves beside them. They were tough—Phil's operatives always were—but they were outmatched. "Get yourselves out of here. And go down, not up! The upper levels aren't stable."
They didn't need to be told twice. "Are you coming sir?"
"When everybody's out." Nick was already casting his eyes about for the other four elves. He could hear the crashes and screeches of conflict on the other side of the room and ventured closer, picking up a heavy shard of crystal on his way. Maybe the man was immune to tranqs, but nobody was immune to a thump on the skull. He soon caught sight of his target—and the rest of his elves. The stranger had them cornered, and was clearly about to vaporize them all into dust. Nick was too far away to even throw his chunk of crystal.
Magic shot from the spear—and reflected off of a cleverly aimed piece of crystal, thrown by Clint from an impossible perch halfway up the wall. The burst of deadly magic zoomed back towards its master. Caught by surprise, the man dropped to the floor, and was rewarded by eighty pounds of furious elf jumping on his back.
Deciding that Clint could handle the attacker temporarily, Nick sprinted down the length of the hall to the four other elves. "Go!" he ordered, grabbing one by the scruff of his uniform and slinging him towards the exit. Seven elves, safe. Now there was just Selvig and Clint…
Nick spun around and scanned what was left of the transport room. Much of it had taken on a gray pallor as a result of the stranger's spear, and it was not hard to pick out Selvig's green suit. The elf looked dazed when Nick reached him.
He wrapped his little fingers around Nick's arm. "DC4's completely shot. We've got maybe two minutes before the engine room blows apart."
"If you don't start running we've got maybe two seconds before we get blown apart." Nick dragged the elf along with him towards the exit. As sharp cry from Clint made him stop in his tracks. He spun around, motioning Selvig to keep running. Instead he just trembled in place.
The stranger had a fist clamped around Clint's wrist, holding him in the air and away from his body. Clint was swinging his free hand—armed with a sharp splinter of crystal—at his aggressor, but couldn't reach him. The stranger spoke. "You have heart."
As Nick watched, the man touched his spear to the Clint's chest. For a second Nick was sure the elf would crumble into dust. Instead Clint shuddered slightly, and the stranger dropped him. When he got to his feet, he looked up at the stranger, and dropped his shard of crystal. Nick felt his heart sink. Whatever had happened to him, Clint might well have been better off as a puddle of dust. Nick shoved Selvig closer to the exit.
"Please don't." The stranger's voice rang across the room. "I need him to run that Hourglass of yours."
Nick turned around to face the man, arms crossed. He kept himself between Selvig and the stranger. "This doesn't have to get any messier. You don't want to end up on the Naughty List," he said.
"Of course it does. I've come too far for anything else." The stranger grinned at him, looking more than a little deranged. He spoke slowly, savoring each word. "I am Loki… of the Island of Lost Toys… and I am burdened with glorious purpose."
Selvig peeked his head out from behind Nick. "The Island of Lost Toys? Yes… Loki, brother of Thor!"
Nick recalled the mix-up a few years back with a prince from the Island of Lost toys. It helped to explain—but not excuse—the behavior of this man (this toy?): the folks there were more than a little odd.
"We have no quarrel with the Island of Lost Toys," Nick said.
"An ant has no quarrel with a boot."
Nick seethed at the flippant tone. This was unbelievable. "And you're planning to step on us? You're asking for bad news in your stocking this year."
"I come with glad tidings," Loki said, with a flourish of the spear that made Nick flinch. Loki sneered at the movement. "Of a world made free."
Nick imagined he could feel the floor rumbling slightly beneath his feet, and his thoughts jumped to the DC4 engine. How long until it blew? "Free from what?"
"Christmas. The great lie all you all tell each other. The truth is this: there is no such thing as Christmas."
This one was really a nut, Nick thought. But he was a dangerous nut. "Really? Have you taken a look around you?"
Suddenly Clint, who had been standing coolly at attention beside Loki, seemed to come to life. "Sir, St. Nick is stalling. As soon as Mrs. Claus figures out something is wrong she'll stop the Hourglass and we'll be trapped here."
Nick briefly cursed the foresight that made Phil pick such intelligent agents. He didn't have a moment to come up with a new plan; at a nod from Loki, Clint drew his tranq gun out of its holster and fired at him. Nick tried to dodge, but knew it was futile—Clint's marksmanship skills were legendary—and felt the dart pierce his shoulder and fall out. The world started to spin.
"Sweet dreams, Santa Claus."
Nick wasn't sure when his knees hit the ground, but he was definitely on the floor by the time he caught sight of Loki giving Selvig the same treatment he'd given Clint.
If this didn't make you smile, review and tell me why! If it did, review and tell me what you'd like to see!
Up Next: The rest of first scene, and the Black Widow. How could I possibly turn her into a Christmas icon, hmm?