A/N: Okay, so I'm sorry again. I was working on a musical and three video projects, that is my excuse this time. Also finals. The next thing I'm sorry for is the fact that I literally finished this ten minutes ago because inspiration struck and I had free time so it hasn't been edited any and is probably filled with mistakes. And the last thing I am sorry for is the fact that it is so short but it took forever to write that fight scene and I'm happy with where it finished so, yeah.

Thanks for sticking around and thanks for the comments and favorites and follows. You guys are amazing.

Ragnarok

Chapter 10: These Motherfucking Snakes in This Motherfucking River

The occupants of the thingstead crowded the viewing pool, harried whispers like the rumble of a glacier as they peered into the water expectantly, waiting for the show to begin.

~AVENGERS~

Saying you could cut the tension in the room with a knife didn't quite, for lack of a better term, cut it. Tony wasn't even sure his repulsors could do the job at this point. The entire team (sans Clint who was still mysteriously missing) were gathered around the Captain's bed, watching with a mix of fascination and fear as Thor laid a hand on Steve's head, closing his eyes to focus.

If this worked, they would have a beat on Loki. If it didn't… Tony didn't want to think about it.

Luckily, he didn't have to. Thor looked up again, a furrow immediately forming between his brows, a look of confused revulsion on his face. That didn't bode well.

"Did you get it, big guy?" Tony asked, anxiously playing with the Iron Man helmet he held in his hand.

"Yes, but this was not a spell of Loki's making, though it is similar."

"What do you mean?" Bruce asked, wringing his hands out of nervous habit.

"Loki's charms are always slippery, devious things that reek of mischief and envy. This…" He gestured back at the Captain. "This burns of anger and feeds on fear. It is a creation of most malevolent spite that wants to be found, to be known for its rage." He shook his head sharply. "My brother is filled with greenest jealousy but he is no creature of evil."

"Tell that to New York," Natasha mumbled.

"But you can find who did it, right muscles? And they can fix this?" Tony questioned, his voice almost desperate.

"Of course, my friend," Thor reassured, clapping a firm hand on Tony's shoulder. "Arm yourselves and I will lead you to them."

None of them needed to be told twice.

~AVENGERS~

"Guys, I don't mean to be a pessimist," Tony called through the coms from his position above the wharf, his eyes glued to the green and gold figure that stood solitary, his blue eyes and toothy grin pointed upwards. "But this stinks worse than Katpiss Neverclean over there."

"Hey!" Clint squawked, the brush of wind distorting the transmission. "At least I wipe down the gym equipment when I'm done, Sir Sweatsalot!"

"Boys," Natasha cut in. "I think you should know that I have access to the places you sleep and a guy in bioweapons owes me a favour." The com channel went silent as they mulled that over. A shudder ran down Tony's spine as he remembered the incident with the hair straightener. He would rather not have a repeat performance. "Though Tony is right."

"Ha! Suck it, feathers!"

"Tony, Thor; engage him and try to talk him into reversing the spell. Clint; get some height and try to take him out with the SLTs. Bruce; stay back unless it looks like it's getting out of hand."

"No argument here," the scientist muttered.

"I'll sneak around the crates and take him down if negotiation fails."

"Have you been taking lessons from Cap?" Tony asks. "Seriously, you've got this presence. Very commanding. I like it."

Natasha smoothly ignored him, instead asking, "Are we ready?"

"Go Wildcats," Tony sighs, swooping down to land next to Thor and walking out onto the docks together.

It was unnerving, to say the least, the way Loki watched them advanced with his posture relaxed and the wild, almost manic grin on his face that only seemed to grow wider the closer they came. There was something about him that seemed… off. He looked emaculate in every sense of the word; his hair perfectly slicked back, clothes straight, armour polished, no bags under his eyes like when he'd tried to claim the city just a few months before. The crazed revenge-driven madman they had fought before was gone. Instead, they faced this Loki; perfectly primed and looking every bit the heir the throne he claimed to be.

It was almost disturbing.

He looked too perfect considering what Thor had assured them he had been forced to endure as punishment. There wasn't a hair out of place nor a scar on his skin. Tony didn't like it.

When they stopped in front of him, Thor hefted his hammer lightly, his narrowed gaze locked with his brothers.

"What have you done to our captain, Loki." His voice was level but the thread of anger was still there, the threat sounding plainly. Loki's smirk turned feral.

"Hello to you too, brother, how very lovely to see you again. How is mother doing? She seemed upset last I saw her."

Tony shot out a hand to hold the god from beating the smirk off of Loki's face and had to mentally pull himself back from doing the same when the Jotun chuckled.

"Alright, Bambi, remove the spell and we'll make sure the Hulk doesn't get to play with his favourite toy."

He frowned sadly at them. "And here I brought you a gift and everything."

"Gift?" Tony's face scrunched up in confusion. "What gift?"

"It'll be here soon enough," Loki said pleasantly, the smile back in place.

Thor opened his mouth to demand that the spell be removed again when the ground shook, a reptilian roar splitting across the docks and rolling out into the city.

"Well, that doesn't sound like fun. Widow?"

"We heard it, Stark! Clint, take him down!" Before she'd even finished speaking an arrow snapped through the Loki, the image shimmering and fading while the arrow lodged itself in the concrete.

"Sorry, Nat, Sedative Laced Tips don't do much against illusions."

"Why do you sound like you're blaming me?" Tony snapped. "I can't make an arrow to hit something that isn't there, that seems like a fair limitation on my otherwise godlike abilities wouldn't you say?"

"Friend Stark," Thor yells, wrenching Tony's attention back to the bay in front of them. An enormous black shadow was zipping through the water toward them. An analysis of the shadow popped up on Tony's HUD without prompt. He stared at it, trying to process what he was being shown.

"Uh, guys, that's –" A shriek silences him. The shadow has reached the dock, rearing up, bursting through the surface.

"Jormungandr," Thor finished, wide, grave eyes watching the creature thrashing about above the water.

It was incredible and terrifying. Deadly beauty had never seemed a more accurate phrase. Jormungandr's size must have equalled the Chitauri cruise liner Tony had led to the other Avengers at the beginning of the battle and tripled its length. Its scales shone a brilliant ocean blue flecked through with sea green down the intimidating curve of its spine, only broken by a wing on either side that extended to what must have been ten or twelve metres, its eyes a chilling yellow above its gaping maw, water dripping menacingly from fangs that must have been at least the size of a fifty year old tree.

"I'm not hallucinating again, right?" Tony checked, backing up slowly, Thor keeping in line as they went. "Because, you know, if I am, I'd like a medal for my creativity and copyright on that beautiful monster so I can sell it to Disney, I'm sure there's a story they can get out of this."

The hideous yellow eyes snapped down, locking on Tony and Thor's movement. It screeched again, liquid flying from its mouth and splattering the docks. It sprang at them. Tony and Thor jumped apart, fangs gouging into the concrete where they had been standing. Tony took to the skies, firing off repulsors. They bounced off the Jor's scales, not even earning a flinch from the goliath.

"It appears the creatures hide is too thick for your repulsors, sir," Jarvis intoned.

"What would I do without you, Jarvis?" Tony snarked back, dropping down onto its head and taking aim at the big yellow target.

"Starve, sir."

"That was much too true an answer for my liking, J, really, I'm hurt."

"Stark!" Natasha screamed down the com. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Fulfilling my dream of becoming a wizard," he shouted back, letting off a repulsor blast. The snake screamed, blood pouring from its now empty eye socket and whipping its head to the side. Tony rolled off but before he could get his boots firing again, it snapped back, its skull cracking against his side. Tony smacked into the side of the boathouse, bursting through the wall and crashing into the side of the fishing trawler inside.

Outside Thor brought him hammer down on a joint in the wing, hearing the satisfying crunch of bone and a feral scream. He jumps backward out of range of the flailing limp, using Mjolnir to swat it away whenever it came close. An arrow buried itself in the hole created by Tony's repulsor blast and a roar brought the Hulk into the theatre.

The giant jumped, hurtling himself at the snake and wrapped his powerful green arms around its neck, using one hand to hold himself to the scales and the other to punch at its throat. Jor dropped down, throwing its whole bodyweight against the floor. The Hulk got caught between, smashing into the ground, trapped under the creature's enormous girth.

Thor rushed forward, his hammer raised to be brought down on the snake's snout. Its face snapped up, jaws wrapping around the god and holding him. Another arrow finds its way into the hole of the Jormungandr's eye and it bites down harder on its captive, its tail swiping around, knocking into the building Hawkeye was occupying.

"Clint!" Natasha yelled, charging at the creature, a knife in each hand.

"I'm fine," he groaned through the crackling com. "Just get the bastard!"

And Natasha had been one for following orders. She ran towards it, jumping, falling, her knives sinking between the scales. She yanks them sideways down its flank, driving them deeper as she went.

"Holy hand grenade, Batman, what are those knives made of?" Tony groused, charging back into the fray.

"Adamantium."

"Well that explains a few things. I thought my repulsors were playing up, you're just cheating!"

"Being better prepared isn't cheating, Stark," she scoffed, dodging a swipe of the tail with her spooky ninja reflexes (it still creeps Tony out, no matter how long he's watched her swipe the last cookie out from under his fingers).

A roar cut off his comeback (he had one, he swears) and pounding set the ground shaking.

"Hulk want out!"

"I'm sorry, was that Jolly?" Tony asked, scanning the battlefield for the not-so-subtle mountain of a man.

"The snake fell on him," Clint reported, the whistling of wind as he let loose another arrow audible over the com.

"And are we going to help him, children? You have to learn to help each other, team work is a very important skill and-"

"Little busy!" the Tweedle Twins yelled back.

"I as well, Man of Iron," Thor added from his spot inside the snakes jaws, his fists scrabbling wildly to get a grip and pry them open.

"Ugh, fine, I'll do it. No, no, don't thank me, I'd do it for any of you."

"No you wouldn't!"

"That's rude and ungrateful. I'm palming your next rescue off onto the Hulk, Robin." Tony swooped down to the ground, landing to see a green fist sticking out from under the great blue belly of the beast pounding a hole into the concrete angrily. Tony slipped his gauntleted hands under the monster and turned back to look at the flailing hand. "Okay, buddy, we're going to lift. Ready? Go!" Tony heaved, servos whirring, metal groaning and oh, god, his back. He was getting too old for this. The body lifted away from the concrete and the Hulk managed to get enough room to wedge his hands under it with Tony. He pushed up, roaring loudly, until he had the room to roll out, Jor crashing back to the pavement. Tony straightened up only to be knocked back down by a slap to the back.

"Hulk thank metal man!" the giant grinned. He nodded once before jumping off back to the fight. Tony hauled himself to his feet, rolled his shoulder, muttered "With friends like these…" and pushed off the ground after him.

Thor still couldn't get his fingers into the gap he needed and he didn't have a good enough angle to swing Mjolnir. An arrow thunked into the thing's eye socket again and it clenched its jaws. Thor cried out in pain, his ribcage warping under the pressure, bones bending, just this side of cracking and if he doesn't do something soon-

"Need a hand?" Thor's head whipped around to see Spiderman crouched on Jormungandr's snout, expressionless mask watching. The vice clenched again and he grunted, nodding quickly. Spiderman dropped down beside him, planting his feet on the bottom jaw and grabbing the upper with his hands, pushing against the grip. "Whoo! Somebody eats their steak, huh?" he ground out, pushing harder and the jaws began to shift. A few more inches and…

Thor pushed himself up and twisted out of the mouth, grabbing Spiderman around the middle and leaping away as the jaws snapped shut. He dropped to the floor, setting down his costumed saviour and looking him up and down before nodding slightly.

"Thank you, Spider Child. Your assistance is much needed in securing Jormungandr. See if you can't tie him down while we keep his eyes from you."

"It's Spiderman," Peter mumbled but nodded and swung off to try and secure the tail that was still whipping around with the Black Widow holding on for the ride.

Webbing the tail down was proving to be harder than he'd thought; the damn thing kept snapping his webs. He was going to have to get a bit more creative. Peter shot one end of the web at the ground and started weaving strands together to make a thicker (and hopefully stronger) cable. When he finished, he threw it over the tail pulling it tight and attaching it to itself like a lasso. Jormungandr screeched, throwing its weight sideways, away from Widow's knives. The web stretched taught and…

Snap!

Peter cursed, ducking out of the way as the cable whipped back around with enough elastic force to take his head off. This just wasn't working. He needed to come up with something else, something-

"Hey, Charlotte!" Peter turned to see Iron Man hovering above him. "I've got a plan, wanna tag along?" He wasn't doing anything useful anyway. Peter shot out a web, attaching himself to the Iron Man suits chest plate and getting dragged behind as Stark took off.

Below, Natasha was still gritting her teeth as the tail whipped her across the ground, her knives the only thing stopping her from being thrown across the battlefield.

"Alright. I'm done!" she decided. Natasha transferred her weight to her left hand, wrenching her right knife from the skin of the snake, sinking it in further up its back and dragging it down, scoring a long gash in the flesh. Jormungandr whipped faster, roaring its outrage. She reached up again, running through the same cut, slicing deeper. She kept going until she found bone and blood had soaked the front of her outfit, matting her hair, then she yelled into the coms, "Clint! Got any explosive rounds left?"

The sound of air splitting in the path of a projectile was his response. She plucked the arrow from the air as it sailed past her head and threw it down into the gash she'd cut, wedging it between flesh and bone. She pulled her other knife, throwing herself from the thrashing tail and landing in a neat roll, coming back to her feet smoothly.

"Now!"

The explosion rocked the ground, the tail blown to pieces like a plugged gun in an old cartoon. The screaming was ear-splitting, filled with rage and pain. Its head whipped around to come at her again. The Hulk jumped in front of her, roaring, and clamped his hands down around Jor's face, holding the thrashing snake firm. Thor jumped down from the sky, Mjolnir smashing into its one working wing, shattering the bones. It hissed in rage, trying to flap the crippled limp.

"Keep 'im there, muscles!" Iron Man's robotic voice ordered over the docks. Natasha looked up to see Stark carrying an enormous metal girder, one end jagged and broken, with Spiderman perched on his back carrying what looked to be an overgrown cinderblock on a stick. Hulk roared and tightened his hold on the thrashing snake while Stark got into position. Thor leapt onto the beasts back, placing Mjolnir just below its skull, trapping it under the hammer's weight. Tony brought the end of the girder right over the centre of the snake's head, the point hovering right between its eyes. Tony turned his head to look at the kid hero crouched between his shoulder blades, a smirk in his voice as he asked "Ready, Petey?"

"Batter up!" Peter returned, grinning like a madman as he hefted his makeshift mallet. Stark lifted his arms and slammed the spike down into Jor's skull and Peter jumped bringing the hammer down with all his enhanced strength behind it, driving it home.

Jormungandr stopped moving, blood dribbling lazily down the rivets of its head, mouth wedged open by its gargantuan fangs. Hulk roared at it and gave it a punch for good measure while the rest of the heroes rallied on the ground around the sad remains of the creature. Tony took stock of everyone as he set himself down; Hulk was perfectly fine (as always); Clint had a few scratches and he was limping a bit but was otherwise fine; Natasha was cradling her left arm and a quick scan showed a small fracture in her wrist; Thor was perfect (I mean look at that bone structure and those muscles…) and Peter… just seemed like he was having fun. Tony turned to watch the young man poking around the corpse; sticking his head in its mouth, poking its fangs, generally doing the science nerd thing (Tony could respect that, he'd have SI employees down to pick up samples later anyway). It was a shame to interrupt him, really, but…

"Listen, kid, we need to talk."

"I don't want to," Peter answered, not even turning around. That was just rude. Tony flipped the faceplate up to get a good look at him.

"Look, Peter, this isn't about you right now," Natasha chimed in and, oh, he turns around for her. "There's something big coming and this thing?" She gestured to Jormungandr. "It's just the start. There's an army coming. You weren't there for the first one but we need your help this time. You don't even have to join the Avengers, we just need you until this is over." Peter stared at them, blank mask giving nothing away as he looks between the group. He must have seen something because he nodded and pointed to Natasha.

"Just until this is over. I'm holding you to that."

"Great!" Tony's armoured hands clang as he claps them together. "Now that that's settled, let's go back to the Tower, I'm starving and Jarvis is ordering pizza, aren't you Jarvis?"

"Whatever more important thing could I be doing, sir?"

~AVENGERS~

Harried whispers run around the thingstead, heads turning to each other, questioning, demanding, insulting, and, eventually, all eyes turn to the front of the room where the god of mischief leans with his hands pressed to the icy rock table, face twisted into a snarl, eyes burning with rage, and the gently smiling king seated in his throne behind.

A/N: There we go! I finally wrote something. Yay! I hope that was okay, I don't know if I fell back into it the way I would have liked but my mind is in other places at the moment. I'm working on another Avengers fic that is actually really long and really hard to write but I hope it'll be worth it when I finally finish it, so, that.

Thanks again for reading and keep on keeping on!

(I won't say I'll try to stick to my upload schedule this time, I think we all know it's not happening...)