Happy New Year! I hope this doesn't taste too stale five days after Christmas…

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 9: It Flew like a Flash

"You know, this was way less fun than busting up drones," Tony told Max as he weaved around the electromagnet's rotor blades and cleared the wreckage of the control spire from their path. "This thing is the most awful piece of engineering I've ever seen. If I'd designed it there'd be about six more fail safes."

"Well, sir, St. Nick did request your input on the North Pole's levitating technology last—"

Tony cut his AI off. "Yeah, I know. Whatever." He remembered Nick's various attempts to get him to contribute his genius to the North Pole, but Tony had always refused. The Grinch did not work with Santa Claus. Period.

Rotors cleared, Tony flew into position behind one, near the turbine's rim in order to get more momentum. "Alright, time to take first place at the science fair." He hailed Rudolph. "You ready for me, goalie?"

With Rudolph's affirmative, Tony started pushing, his suit whining slightly at the resistance. The rotor began to move, slowly at first, and then faster. Soon enough it would start generating a current.

"Grinch, you'd better finish as fast as you can. I can barely keep in one spot out here. The wind—" The reindeer cut off.

"Rudolph?" Tony said after a moment. Please don't let the guy bail on him now. The rotors were moving already, the blizzard was getting worse, and Tony was pretty sure he'd noticed the North Pole begin to list downwards. There was no time to stop and go find Rudolph. "Hey! Where are you?"

~o~o~

Rudy was trying to keep himself more or less centered over the electromagnet, keeping a careful eye on the Grinch when he could see him through the rotor blades, but it was very difficult to do with the blowing wind and snow. Rudy had flown through storms before, of course, even led Santa's sleigh through them, but flying was motion. It was always easier than just hovering in the air.

So things were already difficult enough when Rudy spotted a band of armed toys preparing to launch another explosive from one of the Dream Catcher towers. He stopped talking to Grinch, mid-sentence, and dove towards the grenade, knocking it away into the blizzard surrounding the North Pole.

The attackers replied with a barrage of tranq gun fire. Rudy swerved and prepared to come at them from above, too focused on evading shots that, at this height, would be deadly, to answer Grinch's increasingly frantic hails.

~o~o~

Thor winced as he took yet another staggering blow from the Snowmonster—or more correctly, the Snowmonster used him to deal a staggering blow to a nearby wall. As much as he hated to admit it, Thor was tiring. He had succeeded in keeping the Snowmonster from expressing its rage on the North Pole and its inhabitants, but Thor had made no headway in subduing thing. He had slipped on ice more times than he could count and could barely feel his cold fingers anymore.

Thor used his leverage with the wall to sling the Snowmonster across the landing pad, and then scrambled to his feet, summoning Mjolnir. They were on the landing pad, exposed to the open air—perhaps a bit of lightning would slow this monster down.

"Hey! Toylander!" Thor glanced behind him towards the shout. A half dozen elves were crawling all over Santa Claus's sleigh; one was hailing him. "Duck!"

Duck? Thor frowned, momentarily distracted. Why would the elf be calling his attention to a fowl when they were all in peril from the—

Something came flying at his head from the direction of the sleigh; Thor dropped to the floor to evade it. Tracking its path through the air, he watched it collide heavily with the Snowmonster and explode, loudly, into dozens of colorful sparks. 'Duck' evidently meant something much different here than what Thor was accustomed to. He turned back to the sleigh.

"We got its attention!" another elf cheered.

The Snowmonster roared at them from across the landing pad; the blizzard surrounding them intensified.

"Yeah, and now it's angry!" yelled the first elf. "It's really angry!"

Thor rolled to his feet and sprinted to the sleigh. All the elves were climbing out of it except the first one, who was frantically punching a number of buttons inside it. The sleigh lifted off of the landing pad, hovering a few inches in the air, causing its bells to jingle merrily. The other elves tugged at Thor. "Get out of here! It's gotta chase the sleigh, not you!"

Thor retreated from the sleigh as it began to move across the landing pad, picking up speed. The Snowmonster roared once more, and chased after it. Sleigh and beast shot towards the edge of the landing pad.

At the last moment, the remaining elf jumped out of the sleigh and caught the edge of the landing pad. Thor rushed forward and snatched him off the edge. The tiny thing was blue from the cold but otherwise quite fine.

The elf's teeth chattered as it tapped its hat and communicated with its superiors. "Th—th—this is Sitwell. The sleigh is launched. W-w-with any luck the Snowmonster will chase it all the way to Greenland." The elf was silent a moment. "Yes, sir. He's here." Sitwell glanced up at Thor. "St. Nick w-w-wants you to go guard the prisoner."

Loki. This all could only be his doing. Thor took off towards the stairway.

~o~o~

"Thor's on his way to the detention level now," Maria reported as Nick took another shot at their evasive attackers. "Phil ran into some trouble on level six, but he's heading that way, too."

Nick nodded. He, Maria and any elves still conscious were holding off the enemy toys from behind the Atrium Tree. Every few moments one would duck out from its cover beyond the entrance and try to head for the control panels. Each time, they were forced back with tranq shots. Unfortunately, the defenders were also trapped, since the only cover in the room was the Atrium Tree.

Suddenly, that cover exploded. Branches, tinsel and pine needles rained down on Nick and the others; he rolled away from the worst of it and scanned the ceiling, hoping his suspicions would not be confirmed

He wasn't that lucky. A suspension line was hooked onto the bottom of his workshop, and hanging from it was the only elf that could manage to pull off an attack this crazy: Clint.

Even as Nick was bringing up his tranq gun to fire at the rogue elf, Clint shot an arrow into their midst. Nick held his breath and covered his face as it exploded, determined not to breathe any in. By the time he looked up, Clint was gone.

"Sir, the others are retreating," said one elf, motioning to the entrance where their attackers were pulling back. Nick scowled.

"I'd hardly call it retreating. See what they broke. Fix it."

~o~o~

Annie hadn't moved. She sat, huddled on the ice-covered floor of the stairwell like a broken puppet, her strings cut. She listened to the flurried, frenzied reports jumping back and forth on the comms. An attack one the Atrium. A blizzard. Grinch had lost contact with Rudolph. The Snowmonster was on the landing pad with Thor. They were losing altitude. The Snowmonster was gone.

"It's Clint. He took out our computer systems. He's headed for the detention level. Does anybody copy?"

No one would copy. They were all busy. Annie knew; she'd been doing nothing but listen. Listen and remember how to breathe.

Then the name registered. Clint.

Annie spoke, voice less shaky than she expected it to be. "This is Mattel. I copy."

~o~o~

It was unmistakable now—the North Pole was falling. Tony upped the power on his thrusters, forcing the rotors to pick up speed. He tried hailing Rudolph again.

The answer was not Rudolph but Nick. "Grinch, we're losing altitude."

"Yeah, I noticed." It could have been something wrong with the other engines, or Frost's blizzard, but Tony's HUD told him that they were at least still in line with the magnetic pole. The electromagnet would still work, once the rotors got up to speed. Which, unfortunately for Tony, would happen in the next ninety seconds. "Rudolph! Answer your damn comms!"

~o~o~

Annie caught up with Clint in the storage bays. The lights were down, no doubt frozen over and shorted out. Annie stalked Clint silently, like a child on one of her recon missions, but he was as well-trained as she was, and he heard her. She saw the exact moment that he heard her, in the tensing of his neck and the weight-shift in his feet.

Annie wasn't prepared for the absolute strangeness of his eyes, for how he didn't recognize her at all, and her hesitation got her a blow to the face with Clint's bow.

Keep focused. She could fix him later, but right now she just needed to put him down.

Annie seized the bow and turned it against Clint, twisting his arm and sending him rocking into a storage shelf. Plastic bows tumbled down on them both. Clint dropped to the floor and swung his legs to trip her, but she jumped over them, clinging to the shelf next to her and using it to propel herself downwards on top of him. The force behind the kick could have ended the fight right there but he rolled away before she landed. His arms wrapped around her neck.

Annie tucked her chin down to stop Clint from choking her and reached a hand over her head to rip a tranq arrow out of Clint's quiver. He caught her wrist with one hand and forced the arrow downward, towards her chest. Annie strained against his weight. Her feet was sliding underneath her.

Having a sudden idea, she tipped her whole body forward, letting Clint flip over her shoulder and fall, headfirst, on the floor. the impact made a satisfying smacking sound, and Clint didn't move for a moment. Annie eyed him suspiciously.

Then he groaned, and opened his eyes. The strange look was gone, replaced with recognition.

"Annie?"

Annie snapped the head off of the tranq arrow and let the dust fall in Clint's face. He fell asleep instantly. Better safe than sorry.

~o~o~

Thor saw the cage doors open just as he entered the room. Determined not to lose Loki again, he charged forward. "No!"

His yell was cut short as he overshot—through Loki—and fell into the cage. Another one of Loki's blasted illusions. The doors closed on Thor before he could get up. He glared through the heavy glass at his brother, who had regained his staff and was watching Thor with disdain. A few feet away, a nasty-looking toy stood at attention, evidently the instrument of Loki's escape.

"Are you ever not going to fall for that?" Loki asked.

Thor felt anger bubble inside of him. This was no game! This was not some opportunity for Loki to show off his magic tricks. He raised his hammer, thankful he had it with him, and swung at the cage door.

Eth glass chipped slightly but did not give. Instead, the clamps holding the sides of the cage loosened slightly; the floor dropped several inches and Thor froze, remembering too well St. Nick's demonstration of the mechanism.

Loki gestured sharply at his toy accomplice. "Get the jet ready." The toy nodded and struck off into the corridor. Loki smirked at Thor. "The earthlings think us immortal. Shall we test that?"

Thor gripped his hammer tightly. The only thing he could do was reason with Loki, and the look in his brother's eyes was proof enough that he would not listen to reason. Loki approached the control panel and flipped open the cover. His fingers hovered over the buttons; Thor's gaze was riveted on them.

"Move away, please."

It was Phil. He was holding the largest tranq gun Thor could remember seeing. It rivaled even a human gun. Despite the fact that it must be incredibly heavy, the elf pointed it coolly, easily, at Loki. Thor couldn't help but smile slightly at the remarkable elf's unflappable confidence.

Loki moved away from the control panel.

"You see this? We started working on the prototype after the New Mexico incident, since the tranqs don't do much for you folks. Even I don't know what it does." He flipped some switch and the gun whined, powering on. Green and red lights flickered along its barrel. "Do you want to find out?"

Thor saw the telltale flicker a moment before it happened. Loki appeared, just behind Phil, at the exact moment his illusion near the control panel disappeared. The elf was quick; he whirled around part way before Loki's staff slammed into his chest, flashing with deadly magic. Phil staggered back into the wall.

"No!" Thor slammed against the glass, too distressed to care that the clamps loosened even further at the impact. No. Not Phil.

Phil slumped to the ground, barely holding onto the gun. His skin was yellowing; he was growing older with each passing second. His uniform and hat faded in color until both reached a dull gray color. Thor couldn't believe it. Thor didn't want to believe it.

He watched Loki walk past his victim and over to the control panel. His expression was as cool as Thor's glare was hot. No words were spoken.

Loki hit the button.

The detainment room disappeared as the cage dropped through the floor. Thor felt himself fall backwards as the tube tipped, buffeted by the hurricane-winds. He lost his grasp on Mjolnir as he slammed into the glass wall. All he could see through it were streaks of white and black, the sky and the snow, rushing together as the cage spun. Thor focused his gaze inside the cage, reaching for his hammer. He had to get out before the cage hit the miles-thick ice far below. Thor may have been a Toylander and nearly indestructible, but his experience in New Mexico had left him with a very clear grasp of his own mortality.

Finally he felt his fingers wrap solidly around Mjolnir's handle. Thor twisted as the cage fell, lining himself up across from the chip in the glass door. It would be the weakest spot. The ground was approaching rapidly.

Thor launched himself towards the crack and felt the glass give with a horrific cracking sound. As he broke free, the cold outside the cage hit him with such intensity he let go of his hammer once more. An instant later he hit the ice.

~o~o~

Loki found he did not enjoy the idae of having vanquished Thor as much as he wanted to. What was particularly frustrating was that he didn't know why. The anguish in Thor's eyes had been priceless, and Loki considered it an especially good stroke of fortune that the idiot elf had stumbled into the situation. The cage may even manage to kill Thor, or at least incapacitate him indefinitely. It should have been very satisfying. Loki frowned, gripping his staff tightly. It didn't matter. Loki had things to attend to.

"You're going to lose."

It was the elf. Was the pathetic thing still alive? Loki guessed that he had not used quite as much force as he ought to have with the staff. He faced the elf, planning to rectify that immediately. "Am I?"

The elf was slumped against the wall, aging rapidly under the effects of the staff's enhanced magic. He'd probably dissolve in a matter of minutes. It was a wonder he was still speaking.

"It's in your nature."

Loki snorted. "Your heroes are scattered. Your presents are undelivered. Your floating toy-factory falls from the sky. Where, exactly is my disadvantage?"

The elf's voice rasped like paper in a hundred year old book. "You lack conviction."

Loki scowled. Who was this insignificant creature to pretend to know him? It was nonsense. It was a lie. It had to be. "I don't think I—"

Something white-hot hit him solidly in the stomach and Loki's thoughts scattered as he slammed through the wall behind him. Groaning, Loki staggered to his feet. Forget it. The death of some fool elf couldn't possibly matter anyway.

~o~o~

The attackers had kept Rudy busy, never abandoning their position even when the North Pole began to fall out of the sky in earnest and the blizzard reached blinding proportions. Deflecting their explosives had been like picking needles out of the haystack while ice-skating. Now that the blizzard was receding—thank God—Rudy had the upper hand again.

He ducked and dodged the toys' shots and drove them further and further back in the tower, chasing them down the steps. They seemed very suddenly eager to retreat, Rudy noted with satisfaction.

"Rudolph, for Christmas's sake, answer me!"

Rudy turned on his comms. It was the first time he'd had enough extra breath to do so. "Grinch, give me a minute. There's a pack of toys up here with grenades trying to blow the rotors up again."

"The magnet is coming back on! I'm going to shut down, you idiot! You had better catch—zzh"

Rudy shot back up out of the tower. He zipped back and forth over the electromagnet turbine, looking for the telltale light of the Grinch's suit. Would there still be a light? The rotors wer egoing much faster than they had been when he last looked.

There! A lightning-fast speck popped out of one of the side vent and ricocheted outwards into the sky. Rudy dove, pushing as fast as he could to catch up with Grinch. The man was flailing wildly; Rudy hooked an antler under one arm and felt the other latch onto him for dear life. The sudden increase in weight was hard to compensate for and they continued to drop. Grinch was a lot bigger than an elf. Rudy pulled up with all of his might, headed for the North Pole, already far above them. His muscles burned and the cold air seemed to hold no oxygen at all.

They barely made it to the landing pad. Rudy sank to his knees, panting. Grinch scrambled up onto his knees and ripped of his helmet. His face was the most brilliant shade of green Rudy had ever seen, though it was rapidly fading to its normal hue. The man gasped for breath, clutching at his armored chest with one hand and supporting himself with the other.

"You alright?"

"Blood pressure," Grinch gasped. His breathing began to even out as his coloring returned to normal. "Spikes with the color."

Rudy arched an eyebrow. What could he possibly be envying right now? "What did you want?"

Grinch gave him a withering look. "For Rudolph the Responsible Reindeer to be there to catch me like he said he would. What part of 'Don't wander off' did you not understand?"

Rudy glanced away. "I caught you, didn't I?"

~o~o~

Nick would have had it be anyone but Phil. Himself, Maria, anyone. Nick barely had eyes for the missing cage and escaped Toylander as he knelt next to the elf.

"Medical team to detention room." His voice was tight.

Phil looked a couple hundred years old. His skin stretched around his bones. His eyes were dark and sunken, half closed. His breaths rattled, and came far too infrequently. One of the New Mexico prototypes lay next to him, still smoking.

"I'm sorry, boss," Phil rasped. "The toy rabbited."

Always a professional, Nick thought. "Just stay awake." He tapped the elf's shoulder to keep him focused. "Eyes on me."

"I think I'm clocking out early this year."

Nick shook his head, jaw clenched. The elf was turning a deathly gray. "Not an option. Christmas isn't over yet."

"Merry Christmas, boss." The elf took a long, painful breath. It had an air of finality to it. "It's worth it, really. This was never going to work if they didn't have their own…"

The elf faded out, last word unsaid: angel.

Nick's hand still rested on the elf's shoulder. After a moment he felt it give and pulled back. Just like everything Loki's staff touched, the elf's body was dissolving. Nick backed away, chilled by the sight.

His voice betrayed no emotion as he turned on his comm. "Phil is down."

Several replies reached him at once. Maria's voice sifted to the top, anxious but professional. "A medical team is on its way."

"They're here. There's nothing left."

I have to admit, I always liked Coulson, but I never understood the people who were traumatized when Marvel killed him off. Now, having done it myself, I do.

If this didn't make you smile (or cry), review and tell me why! If it did, review and tell me what you'd like to see! Have an idea for a Christmas/Avengers parallel? Review!

My reviewers! ErinKenobi2893 and Anonymous Rex: Thank you for sticking with me even after Christmas. I promise to deliver the rest!

Up Next: Nick shamelessly manipulates the Angels, and they get their act together.