First, I am so sorry for the delay! Things have been rough the past month, and my creativity's been on the wane. So thanks for being patient, and I hope you enjoy this chapter! There's lots of Loki and Kara fluff (finally!) a Yuletide flashback, and feels with Thor and Bruce.
And major, major thanks to my betas, Amanda, Jade, and Majoline, for not only helping whip this chapter into shape, but with info on the Wild Hunt, the central myth behind Yule and for brainstorming with me on the little glimpse of Yuletide Past.
And I hope Loki's rant doesn't offend anyone. It was written by a devout Episcopalian who is very much looking forward to Advent, if that helps. :)
If Loki heard one more saccharine carol or was wished another disgustingly cheerful Merry Christmas, the deal was off, and he would merrily burn every last tree, wreath, and dancing animatronic creation into ashes.
If only Kara didn't have a baffling love for all the glitter and sparkle that had all but infested the city. The humans should be so grateful they had so tiny a savior. That shouldn't be so hard, as evidently that was how their theology worked nowadays.
"Can we go to the store after Santa?" Kara traced little circles in the snow with her boots, humming a song about snowmen or candy canes or something else that had nothing to do with Yule at all.
Loki didn't know which was worse: being accosted with the bitter reminder on every street corner, or how staggeringly wrong it all was.
"Daddy is getting a rather miserable headache. Maybe we'll go tomorrow." He rubbed at his temple and looked at the line before them, a mere handful compared to the veritable host they had slogged through for an hour. "Or perhaps in January."
"But I have to get you a present!"
"All you have to give me, dear, is some peace and quiet, and that will be the most wonderful gift of all." Loki tried to manage a smile as Kara blinked, biting at her lip.
"Do I have to wrap it?" Her accidental cleverness earned a chuckle, and the throbbing behind his eyes ebbed.
"No, no. Besides, wrapping makes noise, and that just defeats the purpose." He noticed a mousy blond woman in front of him, a small boy hanging off her hand, nodding along with every word.
"Good for you. Christmas has gotten so far away from what it's really about. I wish we didn't even have to come here," she replied, however unwanted. "Peace to all men. That's what this season is about."
Loki's shoulders shook, not at all like a bowl full of jelly, and a low laugh escaped his lips. "Peace? We just waited in a line with at least one knock down fight between so-called adults and only the sounds of screeching children for distraction. All around us, people are buying people they don't particularly like things they don't need with money they don't have. If peace was a reason for all this supposed merriment, it was relegated quite far down the list."
The woman shook her head and gave him an almost pitiful look. "If you're not a believer, you don't understand."
Loki smirked, his smile showing just a flash of teeth. "Oh, I'm a believer, in things you could not possibly begin to comprehend." He pressed a hand to Kara's shoulder. "Dear one, be a good girl and cover your ears? Daddy has to give a little lesson."
Beaming, Kara stuck her fingers in her ears and began to sing, halfway in tune, about Frosty the Oddly Round Snow Creature.
"As for the reason behind this ever so trying season, it is not about your newborn monotheistic god, or the fat old man in the chair, or such sentiment as hope or good cheer. The first cause, you sanctimonious troll, was fear, the sensible fear mortals once had for things beyond their understanding. You can hang your lights and sing your songs and sit in a thousand laps but when the wind howls and the Hunt comes riding-"
"The Hunt? It's Santa and his reindeer, moron." The child next in line stepped up, his face devoid of intellectual activity or any sort of redeeming feature.
"Oh yes, Jolly Old Saint Nick. The lovely little fiction you spun for yourselves so you wouldn't be terrified by the Allfather and his eight-legged steed, riding upon the wind, who had no patience for pitiful excuses for human beings like you. You leave this so called Santa cookies and hope he doesn't leave you coal?" Loki's laughter was high, brittle, and more than one parent was pulling their child away as fast as they could. "When you hear something on your roof or at your door on Christmas, I hope all of you have the sense to cower in your beds and hope he grants you the gift of living another day."
The woman who sparked his impromptu history lesson was nowhere to be found. Loki heard children bawling, more than one expletive hurled in his direction, and a warm sort of glow filled him from within, as if his tirade had made his heart grow a few sizes.
"All done," he said as he gently pulled Kara's hands from her ears and nudged her forward, to the empty space where a line had once stood. With a shriek, she clapped her hands as if it was already Christmas morning and ran to sit on Santa's lap.
"Not like I haven't wanted to let a customer have it, but have a little Christmas spirit, would you?" The elf behind the camera fidgeted as he waited for Kara's somewhat rambling list to wind to an end.
Kara's smile couldn't be brighter as the camera flashed, and Santa either hadn't heard Loki's rant or was was doing a remarkable job soldering on. Loki handed over the ten dollars for the photo, and on a inexplicable whim, handed the man (likely a starving writer or an actor, if Stephen and George's comments about the holiday help were true) a fifty dollar bill.
"You know, I think I will have a bit of Christmas cheer after all."
The honking horns were like trumpets. Sullen teenagers dragged from their homes by equally miserable parents sang sweet carols of resentment. The drivers cutting one another off in search of parking spaces, parents wrestling for the last toy on the shelf, store workers looking as if they wanted to strangle every last person with ribbon all filled Loki's heart with a perverse yet genuine Christmas spirit.
Yule's time had passed, and perhaps that was a small mercy, but Loki thought he could learn to rather like Christmas. Horrible sweaters, shoppers trampling one another in the wee hours of the morning, snarled traffic – the season wasn't about peace. It was about chaos, in all its glory.
And so in a fit of newfound enthusiasm, Loki and Kara had embarked on a whirlwind day of seasonal merriment after the utterly satisfying experience of the morning. Loki bought what seemed like half a store's worth of Christmas decorations in shades of blue and silver. They had stopped for cocoa, cookies, roasted chestnuts, and every delectable that caught their eye on a rambling, leisurely stroll through a Central Park lost in a layer of fresh-fallen snow.
Kara had even talked him into ice skating in the park's massive rink, a task he thought should be far easier given his heritage, but no sooner did he step out on the ice than he fell, unceremoniously, onto his posterior.
Kara giggled, high-pitched and almost hiccupping, as she held onto the gate. "I'm afraid I'm not going to be very much help," he said, using the subtlest magic and whatever leverage his hands could find to pull himself up. His ankles wobbled but they held as he made a few cautious glides forward, holding out a hand to Kara, who took it without hesitation.
To their credit, Loki and Kara only did one lap around the rink clutching onto the side rail. Even if their forays into the center often ended in one or both of them tumbling to the ice, the only hurt was to their dignity.
Although there was a good deal more hurt given to the would be figure skater who nearly knocked Kara over with an ill-chosen lutz. With the subtlest flick of his hand, her skates wedged in the ice and she plunged down, face forward, but Loki was certain her nose would heal, given time.
In a last burst of masochistic merriment, Loki even bought a tree on the way home, from a lot just a few blocks south of their apartment. He insisted he could carry it home, but his arms were quivering by the time he dragged it up the stairs and set it in the flimsy metal stand.
"It's so pretty! And it smells good! Can we decorate it now?" Kara buried her nose in the thick branches, petting the fragrant green bristles.
Loki slumped down onto the couch, covered in tiny green needles, hands dotted with sap. "We'll decorate it tomorrow, when Daddy can move his arms again. What do you say we watch a little TV and then we'll go to bed."
"Can we watch Charlie Brown Christmas? Please!" Kara launched herself from the tree and into his lap as the TV flickered to life. Loki groaned; they'd watched the cartoon at least a dozen times by now.
"Again? It isn't going to change the more we watch it," Loki said as he pulled the recording up anyway.
"I know," said Kara, her head resting against his side as the now familiar piano medley began. "That's why I like it."
At least some things time never altered, Loki thought, as a sleepy, contented calm descended on the pine-scented living room like falling snow.
The winter's night was anything but still. Even if the bitter winds had calmed as the host had settled for the night, the clopping of hooves and steady rhythm of the horses' hot breath gave clear indication that the Hunt, indeed, had returned.
But a mortal would have to venture perilously close before he could hear the two newest and slightest voices beneath the quiet roar of the host at rest.
"In the middle of the road!" Thor was scarcely above his father's knee but his small voice was bold for one so small. Nearly buried in white-dusted furs, he clenched a branch between his legs as he galloped across the snow towards the one in his way.
"M'not in road!" The smaller bundle of furs and black hair that was Loki shook his head. "Don't wanna move!"
Frigga chuckled and set down her spindle, pale silver wisps rising into the air. Woe betide to any woman without her weaving in her hand the on the icy nights the All-Mother and All-Father rode. She watched as Thor stumbled to a halt and dropped his wooden mount. "Pretend there's a road," he said, as if the only problem was Loki's temporary lack of imagination. "Loki, you're doing it wrong! If you don't move, I'm going to have to get you. And then you'll be dead."
"'M not gonna be dead! You can't catch me!" Oh, and then Loki did move, his tiny legs barely coming over the drifts, and Thor's frustration gave way to unrestrained glee at the chase. His red cloak fluttering behind him, Thor leapt onto his brother, knocking them both into the white drifts. Loki shrieked, and once he wriggled free, he tackled Thor with equal abandon.
"It's a comfort to know they'll never lack for eagerness." Odin's hand pressed upon her shoulder, and Frigga caught the scent of hearth smoke upon him. "The Norns help whatever soul who will refuse to get out of their way."
"You know that will include us one day." Frigga chuckled as she stood from her throne, seeing the bag in Odin's hand, burgeoning with oats, carrots, and sugar, mortal gifts of faith and fealty. The family who bestowed them would be amply rewarded. "I am glad you let them come, as small as they are. One day this shall be their task."
A day still some distance off, Frigga thought, as Loki now sat blissfully in the snow, scooping it into his arms. Thor had decided his stick was better as a sword against the mortal threat of the trees.
"I'd another reason for bringing them," Odin said, and Frigga's brow furrowed. Her husband often only gave his reasons when they failed. "I wondered if Loki's nature, his true nature, might show itself here."
"Far from the prying eyes of court?" There had been more than a few raised eyebrows when Frigga presented the little dark-haired infant; she was oddly pleased when rumors of Odin's amorous excesses began flitting about soon after. "I do like having them with us, but why not withdraw the spell in our chambers? We may as well be on Midgard for all our hangers on would know."
Odin's good eye looked ruefully towards their sons, who only ever knew that they were brothers and that they were loved. "I have tried. Either I cannot change him, or he will not change. I've no doubt in your vision, but I think this is how he shall be for some time."
"Then let him simply be our son, and when the Norns decree he should know the truth for himself, we'll soften the blow as best we can." Frigga reached out and took her husband's hand. "Not even you can take a sword to fate."
"No, but you cannot blame me for wanting to trim it for our benefit," Odin said, lifting her hand to his lips. His cape rose and fluttered as he hefted the farmer's gifts in the other. "I should see that the host is fed."
"Let the boys tend to the mounts. I think they can manage the task, and it would be good for them to be occupied." Frigga's hand rested upon the curve of her husband's shoulder, fingers brushing soft against cool armor. Odin's face warmed with his smile, his single eye brilliant and twinkling like one of Midgard's stars.
"And what should we do while they are so occupied?" Odin's hand curved around the small of her back, and she tilted her head to blue-tinged heavens, the moon bright against the shadows of bare branches and pendant sprigs of mistletoe.
"Hmmm." The wind carried the boys' laughter through the trees, fluttering across the snow, filling her heart with love and a bone-deep longing. For a child of both her blood and of her heart. "I think, husband, I should like another son."
"Does brooding run in the family now?"
Thor looked miserably on the city from the tower balcony. Bruce might not be the best one to cheer up a depressed demigod. On the other hand, at least it was a quiet awkwardness, unlike Steve's slightly drunken and very tone deaf "Baby It's Cold Outside."
"A funny thing you should mention family," Thor said, turning back towards Bruce, shoulders slumped.
"Okay, less funny, more you seemed you needed to talk about it." Bruce liked to think every now and then he knew people half as well as he knew their atoms. "The holidays can be rough enough on us regular humans. So I figured with all your domestic drama, you might not feel so merry."
"It should not be so sad a time." Thor nursed his glass of mead, and if there was anyone who shouldn't nurse a glass of anything, it was Thor. "Yule was the time of the Hunt, to reward the faithful, strike fear into the rest-"
"Christmas as a time of terror?" Bruce spun his glass of eggnog in his hands. "That's...cheerful."
"Things have certainly changed, but family was no less important than." A sad little smile did nothing to brighten Thor's expression. "When we came to Midgard, we were always together. Father would tell stories of his battles before we were born, and I could not wait for the time when it would be my Hunt. I would have tales to tell, sons of my own, and perhaps Loki there besides me, as he always was. And now…."
"Now things aren't what you thought they would be. That's kinda the way things happen." Bruce smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't think I'd ever be moonlighting as the Other Guy, but I'm dealing with it."
"I do not think we Asgardians handle change so well. And when it comes to my brother…" No one would ever say Thor handled Loki well, least of all Thor.
"Dealing with your brother requires patience. Occasionally blunt force." Bruce rubbed at the back of his neck as he was pretty sure the other guy was basking in happy memories. "But Loki's been less ragey lately, and you're still going to get your day with him. That's not exactly coal in your proverbial stocking."
"I feel as if I know him less than I did when he first went mad. His rage, at least, I could understand." If anyone should have been happy about Loki's sudden shift in priorities, from destroying the world to watching Disney Channel, it should have been Thor. But Thor hadn't exactly been walking on rainbows the past month, even if he hadn't gone so far as to brood out on the balcony. "But now this child has gone and changed him, and even should it be for the better, it is as if my brother is no longer a man I know."
"Oh man." Loki being less of a bastard was supposed to be good, no questions asked. Sure, Clint wouldn't be liking the new Loki anytime soon, but they'd all just assumed Thor would come to like his brother's upgraded personality. "So your brother's a little different now. He has a kid, lives in New York, probably cheats on the crosswords in the morning. So maybe you don't know him now. But maybe you'll get to know Loki 2.0. And he might turn out not to be so bad. Literally."
Thor paused, looking into the city below, and Bruce swore he was looking to the Heights, as if he could just know where his brother was. That or Thor had finally cracked open a map of New York. "Perhaps Loki will never wish to think of me as his brother again. I would like to hope, at least, one day he will no longer regard me as his enemy." Thor clapped a hand on Bruce, and nearly sent him into the floor below. "It might not be family, but it would be a start."
Bruce chuckled through the shooting pains in his shoulder. "Hey, you've got another family here, too." Inside the warm glow of the tower, Tony and Pepper were doing something just this side of PG-13 under the mistletoe; Steve showed no sign of stopping his one man Christmas musical; and Natasha was evidently showing Clint how to use tinsel as a deadly weapon. "What do you say we help them put the fun in dysfunctional?"