Here's a new chapter! I know this chapters a bit short, I'll try to make the next one longer.
Tony was in the gym, as Samael, attacking a heavy duty training dummy he created just to allow him to fight to his fullest ability, without holding back, or using up an enormous amount of training dummies. He was soon lost in the rhythm of the fight, so much so that he didn't notice the small audience he had gathered during the fight until he stopped to take a water break. When he looked up after he had taken a swig of water he was shocked to find Steve and Bruce staring at him.
"What? Is something wrong? I was doing a little training session." Tony said unabashedly.
"You call that little ? Do you know how long you've been down here?" Bruce said.
"Its only been..." He looked down at his watch " 4 hours. I haven't been able to train a lot lately, since being slammed with missions from the Order." He said trying to explain his long absence, but he could tell that it wasn't helping.
"You've been down here for four hours?" Bruce asked shocked, " You realize how unhealthy that is right? "
"I've trained for longer periods. With the Dolofóni I sometimes trained for 16 hours a day. I'm used to it." Tony said, sheepishly. " So why'd you guys come down here anyways?" He asked.
"Well I came down here to see if you wanted some pizza we had ordered in, Natasha told me you were down here. You must have been really zoned in on the fight, I called your name several times, but you didn't reply. So I kinda just watched, not in a creepy way. I never seen anyone move like you. I guess Steve came down to check on us, when I didn't come back upstairs."
"Where did you learn to move like that?" Bruce asked, " I've seen many different forms of martial arts, and none of them resembled anything like your moves."
"Well I combine about 10 different styles, plus I incorporate sword play and knives, so I essentially created my own style of fighting." He stated. "So you said something about pizza? Do you guys think there's any left?" Tony asked as he picked up his stuff.
"There should be."
Then the claxon calling them to assemble rang.
"Well I guess the pizza is going to have to wait." He said as they ran towards their suit up room, where the rest of the team were in various stages of preparedness. Tony was glad he was already in fighting gear, he wore a body suit similar to that that Widow wore, with the soft soled boots of his dolofóni uniform. He still wore a good assortment of knives, both Tanaka blades and his bow, along with his black flexible mask that was given to him by Shield. Once they were suited up they boarded the Quinjet that was parked on top of the tower.
"So what are we facing?" Tony asked.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Clint said.
"We got reports of a giant horde of what appears to be giant gingerbread men." Natasha said.
"You're joking right?" Tony asked on the verge of laughing.
" I wish I was, but I'm not. They also appear to think humans are delicious, so we're going to have to take them out as soon as possible. They also seem to have guns that spit melted gumdrops.." Natasha said.
"You Midgardians have the most unusual assortment of enemies." Thor stated thoroughly confused. Tony couldn't but agree, in the last year that they had faced creatures ranging from Unicorns to metal robots and everything in between.
"Trust me Thor, this is strange for us too." Bruce said.
"So is there a way to kill these things?" Steve asked.
"I'm not exactly sure. They don't seem to show regeneration powers, so if we break them down enough, we could most likely kill them. But they are really hard to break."
"Well who's ready to fight giant monster cookies?" Tony said with a giant grin.
Tony was in the process of fighting one of the monsters and was literally punching the gingerbread man to pieces. He was just about to walk away from the mess of crumbs and start on the next one, when he saw the crumbs from several of the giants he had destroyed start to merge together and form a monstrous creature at least three times the size of the previous cookies. Well that was just perfect, who would create giant people eating monsters that were indestructible? Then an idea popped into his head, as Clint called on the radio.
"So we need a plan B guy's, crushing the cookies into pieces, was not a good move." Clint called in panicked.
"Um are they creating even bigger cookies?" Natasha asked.
"Yeah, I'm seeing this too." Cap said.
" I think I have an idea. We need to herd the cookies into the Hudson river. I'm not sure why I didn't think of this earlier, but I'm pretty sure the moisture will cause the cookies to become a giant sludge of cookie dough at the bottom of the river." Tony said.
"Good thinking Samael, but how do we get the cookies into the river?" Steve asked.
"Well we have you, the Hulk and Thor bring them together, with Widow and Hawkeye annoying them on the sidelines. Once you gather them together I'll play bait and have them all chase me to the river." Tony explained.
"Why do you have to play bait?" Natasha asked.
"Well because I'm fast and I have little annoying pointy objects that will ensure they're pursual. I'm also a pretty decent swimmer. It will be fun." Tony said with a laugh.
" You and I have a very different idea of fun, Samael." Natasha muttered, Tony could almost hear the scowl in her voice.
"Tell me when you push the gingerbread men my way." Tony said as he got in position.
"Will do, just try not to get yourself killed Samael." Steve said in his Captain America voice. "We're starting the herding process, get ready." He added.
Tony prepared himself for the chase that was about to ensue. As soon as the giant gingerbread men came into sight, he shot them with arrows to ensure their annoyance, which worked better than he anticipated because he was soon the primary focus of the monstrous cookies.
"Samael, I would start running if I were you." He heard Clint advise on the radio.
Then he started running towards the river, shooting the gingerbread men with arrows every so often to make sure they were still following. The chase was fast, he wasn't anticipating the 20 foot tall gingerbread men having such great speed, and he was at the river bank in no time. He took one last look at the gingerbread men, who were still hot on his tail, and jumped in the river, which he was sure he was going to regret later, as the water was freezing and muddy. He heard subsequent splashes as the gingerbread landed in the water.
He surfaced in order to make sure that the cookies were still submerged, which they were , then swam towards the shore where the rest of the Avengers, who were covered in melted gumdrops. were waiting. Once he got to the shore Steve helped pull him up because he was freezing and wet and couldn't quite get a good grip on the fence that prevented people from doing what he just did.
"T-t-told y-ou it w-oul-d w-w-work." He said when he was back on dry land, shivering as he just emerged from almost freezing water and was now exposed to air that was almost as cold. Thor handed him his cape, which Tony promptly wrapped around himself.
"Clint's getting the Quinjet. Are you alright?" Natasha asked, as Tony was still shivering and a bit pale.
"Y-y-yeah, j-j-just c-cold."
"You just took a dip in the Hudson river in the middle of March, of course you're cold. Next time, try not to give yourself hypothermia." Steve said.
Then the Quinjet landed in the park a few hundred feet from them and they quickly boarded the jet and took off towards the tower, where Banner prescribed Tony with a bed rest to warm back up, as he had mild hypothermia from his dip in the Hudson, and the rest of the team decided to hold an impromptu movie night, with Tony lying on the couch under a mound of blankets and the rest of the team sitting on various couches and chairs, eating a giant pot of chili Bruce had cooked up and watching their favorite vampire movies.
How'd you like this chapter? The evil gingerbread men was my kid sister's idea :)