Happy New Year! Keep reviewing!

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 10: Tarnished with Ashes and Soot

Rudy didn't say a word to Grinch after Nick announced Phil's death. They both silently made their way to the Atrium. Rudy took the long way around, to avoid the snow and ice left behind by Frost, but if Grinch noticed he didn't say anything. The North Pole's workers bustled all around, chattering into their hatcomms and clearing debris out of the hallways. They entered the Atrium, where numerous elves in masks where carefully sweeping up spilled tranq dust and Nick was glaring with less than usual severity at the mess.

"We lose Loki, sir?" Rudy asked.

St. Nick snorted. "Yes. Just about everything else too. Is that job on the electromagnet solid or do we have to continue repairs?"

Grinch didn't get to answer, because at that moment the intercom system turned on.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And never thought upon?

Mrs. Claus looked up from a group of elves she'd been harassing. "Who turned that on? Who turned on the intercom?"

Her only reply was the song. In fact, everyone in the room had stopped their work. They stood still and listened solemnly, respectfully.

The flames of Life and Love extinguished,

A friendship past and gone.

Rudy had heard this version of the song before. During the war, it was always played whenever they lost someone to Krampus's attacks. Apparently the tradition had continued.

For auld lang syne, my friends,

For auld lang syne.

We'll take a cup of kindness yet,

For the sake of auld lang syne.

St. Nick said nothing, gave no notice that he even heard the melody save that he'd stopped barking orders to everyone. Next to Rudy, Grinch fidgeted.

But now you must go your way, friend,

And now I must go mine.

We've wandered many a weary way

Since the days of auld lang syne.

They'd played it for Bucky, back in the day, and probably for him, too, Rudy supposed. Peggy would've made sure they played it for him. Now they were playing it for Phil.

For auld lang syne, my friends,

For auld lang syne.

We'll take a cup of kindness yet,

For the sake of auld lang syne.

The song ended simply, without any flourishes, and the intercom shut off. The elves in the room filed out, talking softly into their hatcomms and lugging bags of spilled tranq dust. When they were gone, Nick pierced Rudy and Grinch with a solemn look. Rudy glanced down in repsonse, eyeing the shattered remains of some Christmas bulb near his feet.

"We're dead in the air up here. The Hourglass, the presents, even our spare sleigh is gone. I got nothing for you." Nick sighed. "Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming."

Rudy was surprised to hear the admission of fault, but didn't look up as St. Nick continued.

"The world is falling apart these days. Even people who do believe in Christmas are hard pressed to see it around them. So yes, we were building enchanted toys with the Hourglass. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier." Nick paused. Rudy still didn't look away from the shattered glass shell on the ground. "There was an idea, and Grinch knows this, called the Angels Initiative."

Rudy glanced sideways, at Grinch, who was once again turning a remarkable shade of emerald. His fingers toyed frantically with the edges of his coat.

"The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, people with some special connection to Christmas, to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together to bring the Christmas spirit to those who needed it, even when Santa Claus couldn't. To be Christmas Angels."

Angels? Them? Rudy repressed a snort. They had all done nothing but antagonize each other—even himself, Rudy knew. He shouldn't have let Grinch get to him… Frost had been right. They weren't a team; they were hardy more cohesive than the shattered ornament at his feet.

"Phil died still believing in that idea. In heroes."

Rudy looked up without meaning to. Nick was looking at Grinch, who abruptly turned away and left the room. St. Nick's gaze slid from the door back to Rudy.

"Well, it's an old fashioned notion."

~o~o~

Thor climbed wearily over the disturbed ice, tracking the gouges his hammer had made in the Arctic snow. At last he stood next to Mjolnir. He put a hand out towards it, fingers inches away from the handle, but hesitated to call it to him.

He looked around at the icy wasteland. It stretched away in every direction, formless and ancient, reminding him of his home. Suddenly he wanted very much to return to the Island of Lost Toys. To return to Toyland's isolation. Earth was filled with so much chaos, so much pain.

Everything had so gone so wrong. Thor's fingers clenched into a fist. He wanted to go home.

~o~o~

The cold always left a searing ache when it finally retreated. In his bones, in his veins, in his head. Frost supposed it must be something like reverse frostbite. He could feel his body warming back up to a semi-human temperature and it was unbearable. He had to force himself to welcome the heat, to push the cold back, inch by inch, until he was in control.

He was lying, as usual, in a massive snowdrift. This time, it was soft, playful snow, but that was just luck. Frost sat up and eyed the remains of a smashed outdoor play-gym, and here and there a ball or garden shovel peeking up out of the snow. He was in someone's backyard. The air currents swirling high above him felt like southern Europe usually did this time of year.

"Are you Santa Claus?"

Frost looked around quickly at the sound of a child's voice. There was a house with a raised porch a stone's throw away. A little dark haired boy was standing on the steps of its porch in his pajamas and green dinosaur slippers. He looked maybe ten or twelve, and had spoken in Italian. Frost had no trouble understanding, even though his talent with languages was not, as rumor had it, a magical perk. He answered in kind.

"No." Santa Claus. It was almost funny. Frost looked around. It was certainly a large backyard. He could see no other people, no lights in nearby houses, no obvious signs of destruction. "Did I hurt anybody?"

The boy shook his head. "Everyone else on the street goes away for the holidays. Are you sure you're not Santa Claus?"

Children were persistent little creatures if nothing else. Frost smiled slightly. "I'm sure."

The boy sighed. "I thought you might be, since he didn't come yet."

Frost thought of the North Pole's undelivered presents, and realized this child was just one of many who were waking up this morning to no gifts from Santa. He tried to remember what had happened in the last few hours, to reassure himself that he hadn't completely destroyed the North Pole, but couldn't come up with anything more than brief flashes—a mysterious resentment towards Thor's hammer, the satisfaction of crumbling a dark stairway, screams… Frost shuddered, realized the boy was talking, and focused on his voice to clear his head.

"I didn't even ask for a toy or anything. I just wanted a white Christmas. So I could make a snowman." The child hopped off the porch as he spoke and approached Frost. He patted the snowdrift with a smile. "Like this. So I thought you might be Santa, bringing it."

Depending on where they were in Italy, the boy might never have had a white Christmas. Back in the day Frost had brought a few to warmer climates, but the child was too young to have seen any of them. The wistfulness in the boy's tone made Frost ache to help, to be a bringer of white Christmases again…

He looked around at the snow-dusted landscape, noticing that the snow was nearly all melted despite the early morning chill—all of it except the drift in this boy's yard, where Frost's presence kept the air bitingly cold. Frost stood up, ignoring his sore muscles, and gestured at the fluffy snow. "You could use this."

"Won't it melt?"

Frost sighed. "Not while I'm around."

The boy's grin was gratifying, and Frost almost convinced himself that it was possible to be normal, for just this small instant. He sat on the edge of the porch, heading in his hands, trying not to think about anything at all while the boy played in the snow. He managed not to think about what he may have done to the North Pole by mentally listing the people he knew in southern Europe he could beg a ride south from.

Suddenly there was another body sitting next to him and Frost was surprised to look up and see then boy holding two styrofoam cups full of what was probably hot chocolate. When had the kid gone inside?

The boy held out a cup to Frost. "We have a machine, and I can make it all by myself now. I didn't thing you'd want any until you turned normal again."

Frost blanched, pulling back slightly. "You saw?"

The child grinned again, broadly enough to show a gap where he was missing a tooth. "Yep. I was up early to look for presents. You were awesome. "

Awesome was not a word Frost would use to describe the Other Guy. Hesitantly, knowing what would happen, he took the offered cup. The steaming hot chocolate iced over instantly.

"Whoa!" The boy laughed. "That is crazy. Do mine!"

Frost didn't think he could refuse. He had just smashed the boy's whole backyard, after all. He ran a finger over the rim of the child's cup. The boy slurped eagerly at the ice-cold hot chocolate (and wasn't that ironic?) and Frost followed suit.

"Are you an alien?"

"Hm?"

"From outerspace. Like Buzz Lightyear."

Buzz Lightyear? Frost figured he must be a little out of touch with modern children. At least urban ones. "No."

"Then are you like, a superhero or an angel or something?"

The boy's persistence had been charming before; now Frost found it unnerved him. He wasn't normal. It had been stupid to pretend he was, even for a moment. Frost was a monster in disguise, and he didn't want this boy to know that.

He stood up. "I have to go."

~o~o~

In between chaotic flashes of memory and sensation, Clint tried to focus on the hardness of the toy-clamp Annie had him suspended from. He was grateful she had kept him out of medical, grateful she had secured him up in the air, as if he was just perching there like always, instead of desperately trying to hold onto reality. Loki's face wavered in front of him; he pushed it away.

You're in the wood-working room, he told himself. Annie is down on the floor watching you.

Another flash, and a wave of dizziness hit him. Colors spun before his eyes like a pinwheel.

Your name is Clint. You're an elf. You work at the North Pole with Annie. Annie is down on the floor watching you.

Memories teased him: explosions, the twang of his bowstring, voices he couldn't quite make out.

You're tied to a toy-clamp in the wood-working room. You can smell wood shavings. Your name is Clint.

"Clint, you're going to be alright."

The sound of Annie's voice was blessedly grounding, but Clint couldn't help but disagree. "You know that? Ha. Is that what you know?"

"You'll be okay. Just give it some time."

"You don't understand. Have you ever had somebody take your brain and play? Pull you out and put something else in? Do you know what it's like to be unmade?" Loki's face replaced the wood-working room, and Clint thought for a moment he was losing it again.

"You know that I do."

That was true. That was something Clint knew was true and he focused on it, pulling himself back to reality. His Annie used to be Haunted Annie. She had been turned inside out, too, by a vicious toy-maker. She was a toy that had scared children and now he was an elf that had tried to kill Christmas.

He sighed as the room solidified into normal shapes and colors. "Why am I back? How did you get him out?"

"Cognitive recalibration."

"Huh?"

"I hit you really hard in the head." Annie reached for the rope tied to the leg of a table and untied it. Prepared, Clint grasped the toy-clamp as the rope fell away from him. Then he dropped down to the floor.

"Thanks." The pain in his head made a little more sense, at least. Clint looked around. The entire room was in disarray; he supposed the rest of the North Pole had to look much like it.

"Annie, how much damage did I…?"

"Don't," she interrupted. "Don't do that to yourself, Clint."

Meaning a lot. He wondered if he'd hurt anybody, thinking of how embarrassingly impossible the apologies would be.

"This is Loki. This is war and nothing we were ever trained for."

It was true. Recon elves were spies, checking on children, occasionally dousing one with tranq dust. They were not soldiers. It didn't make him feel any better, though. There's nothing you can do to change the past. Focus on the future, on what you can change.

"Loki. Did he get away?"

"Yeah. I don't suppose you know where?"

Clint shook his head. "I didn't need to know; I didn't ask." Snatches of memory bubbled to the surface of his mind: the ghost of a conversation. "He's going to make his play soon, though. Today."

"We've got to stop him."

More memories. War was exactly what Loki was looking for, Clint knew, and the North Pole didn't have any soldiers. They didn't stand a chance. "Yeah? Who's 'we'?"

"I don't know," Annie answered sharply. "Whoever's left."

Clint caught the familiar determined set of Annie's mouth. He would go with her, wherever she was going, whatever she was doing. "Well, if I overdosed Loki on tranq arrows, I'd sleep better, I suppose."

That made smile; she gave him a quick hug. "Now you sound like you."

"But you don't. You're a toy, not a soldier. Now you want to wade into a war. Why?" Clint knew there could be only one person to blame. "What did Loki do to you?"

"He didn't. I just…"

Clint knew Annie's face well enough to know when she was lying—most of the time, anyway. It wasn't a big leap to guess what she was thinking, either. They both had transgressions to make up for. "Annie."

"I got red in my ledger. I'd like to wipe it out."

~o~o~

Tony wasn't sure what he was doing in the detainment room. The cage was gone. Loki was gone. There was no sign of Phil's presence—or his death. It was morbid, to be hanging around here, but Tony didn't leave, not even when he heard Rudolph's hoofs enter the room behind him.

"Was he married?"

"No. There was an elf in Portland." Tony realized that knowing the answer to such a question might make it sound like he cared, so he added: "I think."

"I'm sorry. He seemed like a good person."

Tony did want to be talking about this. Not right now, and not with Rudolph. He needed desperately to not care. "He was an idiot."

"Why? For believing?"

"For taking Loki on alone."

"He was doing his job."

"It wasn't worth it." Tony told himself he was raising his voice because Flashlight-boy annoyed him, and not because he cared. "It's just a holiday. It's not worth dying for."

"Just a holiday?" Rudolph, on the other hand, still managed to sound cool and superior.

"The way Nick celebrates it? Yes." Addictive toys… It hit too close to home, too close to Tony's past. This whole night had brought up everything Tony had ever tried to run away from. "Christmas is more than the North Pole, or Santa Claus, or presents."

"Phil knew that."

"Then he should have waited. He should have…" Tony didn't know. He could feel himself flushing; he wanted out of the room, but Rudolph was blocking the door.

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony."

"Right, I've heard that before." Tony pushed past the reindeer avoiding his antlers.

"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?"

Tony whirled around. "We are not soldiers." He stopped, surprised at his own vehemence. He took a deep breath. "I'm not marching to Nick's fife."

"Neither am I. He's just as guilty as Loki. But right now, we got to put that behind us, and get this done."

Tony realized he was right. It was Christmas Day, and Loki was bound to make his move at any moment. His mind raced over the events of the night, analyzing like it was an engineering puzzle.

"Loki needs a power source," Rudolph began. "If we can put together a list…"

"He made it personal."

"That's not the point."

"That is the point. That's Loki's point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?"

"To tear us apart?" Rudy offered, visibly skeptical of this line of hypothesis.

Tony knew he was on to something. "Yeah, divide and conquer is great, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us, and he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience."

The reindeer nodded, catching on. "Right. I caught his act in Stuttgart."

"Yeah, that was just previews. This is opening night. And Loki, if he's going to steal Christmas, he's going to do it in the biggest way possible. He wants wreaths; he wants lights; he wants a monument built to the sky with his name plastered…"

Tony caught Rudolph's look and stopped. Then he made the connection. Loki wasn't just going to steal Christmas, he was going steal from the man who already had, a man who already had a monument ready for him.

"The dirty little jerk."

~o~o~

When Clint heard footsteps he leapt from the floor to the table to a ceiling beam. A moment later a reindeer came in—Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, of all people. Clint could not remember having seen the living legend recently but he wasn't surprised to see him approach Annie as if they knew each other. He had a feeling the reason was tucked away in one of the elusive memories of his time under Loki's control.

"Time to go," said Rudolph.

"Go where?" Annie asked, giving no indication that Clint was hiding on the ceiling.

"I'll tell you on the way. We still have that jet?"

Annie shook her head. "I heard Frost knocked it off the landing pad."

Clint dropped down to the floor as casually as if he had just walked in the door. When the reindeer didn't flinch, didn't stare accusingly at him, didn't visibly tense, Clint offered his two cents: "There's bunch of passenger-sized reindeer prototypes in storage. Built them after New Mexico for dusting tranq dust over large areas."

Clint watched as Rudolph looked to Annie, received her nod and looked back at him. Clint steeled himself for some kind of threat.

"You got a suit?"

"Yeah," Clint replied, surprised.

"Then suit up."

~o~o~

The blizzard around Thor was rapidly clearing, letting the brilliant starry sky peeking through the clouds. Farther south, Thor knew, the sun was rising on Christmas morning. And somewhere, too, his brother would be opening a portal with the Hourglass, sending magical ripples across the globe.

Thor couldn't go home, not without the Hourglass, and not without his brother. Thor could no more give up on Loki than he could give up on Earth. The children here needed Christmas, needed him to save it. Even if he was the only one standing between them and Loki's army, Thor would still be there.

Mjolnir leapt into Thor's hand, and he lifted it skyward. Frost had had his turn; Thor was going to make a storm of his own, now.

~o~o~

Rudy met Annie and Clint in the storage bays, giving them a nod as Grinch reported in on the comms.

"Rebooted the suit. See you slowpokes in New York."

"We're right behind you," Rudy answered. He glanced at Annie and Clint as the latter led them to their ride.

Annie stalked along with an almost predatory purpose; she wore her Santa hat, and her appearance had not changed beyond the addition of a belt of tranq darts, but she looked less like a sweet, innocent toy and more like a weapon. Clint wore a green recon suit and was armed not with tranq guns but a bow and quiver. He carried them with the ease, like they were extension of his body and could move into action as quickly. The elf reminded Rudy of a coiled spring.

An elf further up the corridor spotted them and frowned. Rudy caught his eyes flicking towards Clint.

"You guys aren't authorized to be in here."

Rudy stepped forward, and looked down at the elf sternly. There were only a few situations in which Rudy was willing to pull the I'm-a-War-Hero-Don't-Argue-with-Me card, but this was one of those moments. "Son, just don't."

~o~o~

Frost was about to leave the yard when he caught sight of the little Italian boy's snowman. He froze in place, staring at it.

It was not a snowman. It was a snowmonster.

It was just under a meter high, packed tightly into shape out of the strong, sticky snow. Considering the time the kid had gotten it done in, he had a future as an artist. The snowmonster didn't have many details, but the ones it did have were vivid. A huge, roaring mouth, with pointy icicle teeth. Large fists, reaching out to grab something. Swirls of texture and little spikes of snow everywhere.

"Is that me?" Frost said softly, without looking away.

"Do you like it?" the boy said hopefully. "I never made a snowman before…"

Frost knew enough about children to nod immediately, whatever his true opinions were. "It's beautiful."

Strangely enough, he wasn't lying.

~o~o~

St. Nick only lied when he needed to. He was Santa Claus, and he needed to set an example, but he also needed to get things done. So he comprised.

"Nick."

It was Maria. He'd expected her to call him out. She was very astute; she had to have guessed who turned on the intercom. "Maria."

"Auld Lang Syne. We usually wait until the funeral to play it." Her tone held the slightest hint of reproach. Maria was not quite a pragmatic as he was in some ways, and far more pragmatic in others. It evened out; they respected each other.

Nick sighed. "They needed the push."

Both of their hatcomms suddenly buzzed: "We have an unauthorized launch from the landing pad."

Nick wondered idly what on earth Rudolph had found that still worked well enough to launch. "They got it. Get our communications back up, whatever you have to do. I want eyes on everything."

Maria hesitated, and Nick knew she'd have more say later. "Yes, sir."

*Auld Lang Syne is a New Year's song and is also sung at funerals, which was too poetic for me to pass up.

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!

Thank you reviewers! I am actually ashamed to admit that I've never watched Agents of SHEILD, so I'm not in on the Tahiti joke…

Anonymous Rex: Battle scenes are hard. I'm glad the duck joke went over well. Truthfully, I'm in the "Thor is actually smart" camp, but culture shock is still funny.

Up Next: Tony threatens Loki.