Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers, but if I did, I'd be filthy rich.

Beta'd by the wonderful krystal lazuli ^_^

It was in the first week of December, and New York City was alive with the winter spirit. Children played out on the streets, lovers went out on dates, friends debated on what to get each other, introverts lay huddled under their blankets, and all in all, it was a wonderful day.

And like anyone else in the city, the Avengers were also having fun in the city with snow. Of course snowball fights with the Avengers were somewhat different from regular snowball fights with normal people. Really, how could you expect it to be normal with two geniuses, a Norse deity, a soldier and two super-assassins? It could never be normal when you factored in that. Not to mention, the Avengers were weird enough without their superpowers. No, it wasn't normal in the least. In fact, it was war.

In the snowball fight, or war as the players were referring to it, there were three unofficial teams: Clint and Natasha, Bruce and Tony, and finally Steve and Thor. Unfortunately, someone, as usual, was having difficulties in understanding how to play, since he wasn't aware of the culture and traditions involved in a snowball fight.

"I AM THE MIGHTY THUNDERER! THOU SHALL NOT DEFEAT ME!" Thor boomed as he grabbed an armful of tightly packed snow, and then hurled it at Tony.

"AHH!" Tony yelled as he literally got buried underneath all the snow. Out of all the ways he thought he would die, being buried by snow was not one of them. Honestly, even if this was war, Thor was taking it a bit too seriously, he thought as he struggled out of the snow.

Upon realing what he had done, Thor smiled brightly and said hesitantly, "Oops?"

Steve face-palmed, Thor didn't understand how a snowball fight should go at all. He grimaced and then decided it was, as usual, up to him to explain things properly. "Thor, you're not supposed to just dump snow on people, that's just not how it's done. See this snowball? You're supposed to throw these at them."

"That's what I did," Thor replied, a bit baffled at why everyone was looking at him like that. It was exactly what he had done, wasn't it?

Steve sighed, why couldn't Thor see the difference between a small snowball and huge lump of snow? "How about I make the snowballs, and you throw them?" he suggested, seeing that Thor wouldn't be understanding anytime soon.

"Okay," Thor agreed immediately, since it was fine with him and he really wanted to get back to their war. Sure, Steve's snowballs were really small, but he was mature. He could compromise.

Splat, splat, splat, splat!

While Thor and Steve had been talking, Tony and Bruce had been trying to sneak up on them after rescuing Tony from the snow grave. Unfortunately for them, Clint and Natasha, like the true super assassins they were, had decided to bomb them with snowballs. None of the four had even noticed them coming up. It was actually a bit scary how quiet they were.

Clint waved and gave a cheeky grin from where he was perched, being in a somewhat playful mood. Natasha, on the other hand, just flashed a cold smile at them before hurling a couple more snowballs at them, with surprising accuracy and speed. When she was in Russia, she hadn't been known as the Snowball Queen for nothing after all. She was the best at what she did.

Meanwhile, Thor managed to dodge, but the rest of them, Bruce, Tony, and Steve, got hit.

"Omph," Tony said with a groan. He complained, "Why am I the one that keeps getting hit all the time? Really guys, it isn't healthy for my arc reactor. Like at all. Could you lot ease up a little, for the sake of my continued health and safety?"

"You could always quit," Bruce pointed out reasonably while they took cover behind some trees. He was a little concerned though, if it was affecting the arc reactor, it could be bad, right?

"Are you kidding?! No way, this is way too fun for me to quit!" Tony exclaimed, shocked that Bruce would even suggest that. Really, playing in the snow was one of the best outdoor activities ever, he had no idea what Bruce was thinking.

Bruce just rolled his eyes and muttered, "Why was I even been worried? Clearly, if you're this enthusiastic, you'll be completely fine. Honestly, making me worry for nothing."

"YOU SHALL FACE THE WRATH OF THE THUNDERER!" Thor roared. Although he had not been hit, his partner had, which made Thor furious. This would not go unpunished, he would have his revenge upon the attackers!

"We really need to stop Thor from speaking in third person all the time," Bruce noted absently. "Really, the whole speaking in third person is getting a bit annoying. It might have seemed cool the first couple of times he did so, but now? Annoying."

"Agreed. Okay, Jarvis, initiate sequence 10203040," Tony ordered, deciding that he couldn't let Thor and Steve get ahead of him, he had to beat those two or die trying. He smirked, this was gonna be awesome.

"Yes, sir," Jarvis answered immediately. For a moment, nothing happened, and the scene remained frozen.

Then, all hell broke loose as four cannons appeared out of nowhere from underground and started blasting people with giant snowballs. Tony sighed in contentment as he heard the rest of Avengers screaming and running around like a bunch of headless chickens. While he might have been the weakest out of all them physically, he was one of the smartest technologically. Nobody could beat him in that field. And really, they shouldn't have expected anything else. Wasn't it obvious that he would play to his strengths?

"Tony," Bruce admonished, but Tony could see his lips were twitching. Tony knew that Bruce was only chiding him just for the sake of being the mature one, he could see that Bruce was secretly enjoying it. He grinned.

"Yes?" Tony asked innocently, confident that Bruce wouldn't say anything serious.

"Never mind," Bruce said after a moment. After all, hadn't they declared that this was war?

"That's what I-" Bruce never got to hear Tony's reply, because at that moment something went POP!

All movement froze, even that of the cannons, and they all stared at the gift hovering midair. Tony and Bruce, being the ones closest to it, cautiously came closer, drawn in by a horrified sort of curiosity. Unfortunately for them, at that moment, the others had decided to ignore the gift and get their revenge by bombarding them with snowballs.

"Ow," Bruce complained as the snowballs hit their target. "Can we just call it a truce? More important issues right now, you know."

Tony had a more pressing question to ask. SOmewhat confused, he questioned, "Jarvis, why'd you stop?"

"I believe Mr. Laufeyson is messing with my sensors, sir," Jarvis answered promptly.

"Darn, I thought we fixed that problem," Tony muttered crossly. Honestly, didn't Loki get tired of messing with everything? And he had been so sure that the improvements that he had made to the security measures he had taken would work out. Sighing in frustration at the situation, he picked up a golf stick—where did that come from?—and cautiously poked the floating gift, which had apparently decided to float closer to the thunderer. Thor took a step back and glared at the gift. Apparently, he was still sore about the turkey incident. All was quiet.

"Achhoo!" Clint sneezed, breaking the suspenseful silence. He said awkwardly, "Sorry."

"Bless you," Steve replied, though a little belatedly.

"Just open it already!" Natasha ordered impatiently. The sooner Thor opened it, the sooner they could finish their war. She continued on, "I have to report back to HQ in an hour, you know."

Scowling, Thor carefully began to tug on the ribbons. He hadn't really wanted to do it, but maybe Loki would start being nice? One could hope right? He opened the ribbons and took the lid off.

BO-ING!

Tony heard the box go "MWAHAHAHAHA!" at the same time he heard Thor go, "AHHH!" and drop the box. What's happening this time?! he thought, wondering if he should run for his life. Wait, no, was that-? Seriously, was Thor scared of that too? For a supposed Thunder God, he was scared of a lot of ridiculous things.

"A jack-in-the-box?" Steve said incredulously. "Loki sent you a jack-in-the-box with evil laughter?"

Thor laughed nervously and picked up the box again. "I suppose it isn't so bad; I just got a little nervous. I suspect my brother is losing his edge. After all, this can hardly get worse."

Tony gasped in horror. Did Thor really say that? That was just asking for trouble, had no one warned him against that. He said with dismay, "You said the words!"

Thor only managed to say a confused, "Huh?" before suddenly, he was bombarded with two large streams of water. "AAHHH! COOLLDD!" Thor screamed as the streams hit him dead on and for the second time that day, dropped the box. He tried to jump away from the box, but the water still followed him.

"MWAHAHAHA! MWAHAHAHA!" the jack-in-the-box cackled evilly as water continued to spray out of its hands like it was going out of style. And then, To Tony's horror, it got bigger and bigger till it was the size of a house. Tony froze as its evil gaze landed on him.

"Uh-oh," Tony said with dread. Why do I have the feeling that Thor's not the only target? Come on, it's only funny if I'm not part of the target, why did Thor have to open the box and say those cursed words?! This is all his fault.

"MWAHAHAHA!" the jack-in-the-box screeched, finding a new target to bombard with freezing cold water. "MWAHAHAHA!"

"You just had to say the words, didn't you Thor?" Tony griped in resignation before the he too was the target of one of the sprays. Meanwhile the jack-in-the-box continued to cackle evilly.

Clint exchanged a look with Natasha before saying, "Let's run." Natasha didn't need further encouragement before sprinting off. They knew when a situation was done for, and when it was wise to retreat. It was pretty obvious by how Tony was flailing around that Thor was no longer the only target of Loki's pranks. Unfortunately, water sprays caught them too.

"This was not in the job description!" Steve yelled somewhat hysterically as he too got hit with water. He became an Avenger to protect people, not to be sprayed by freezing cold water in winter.

"MWAHAHAHA!" the jack-in-the-box said. It started to spin faster and faster so that everyone kept on getting continuously hit by the water sprays.

I'm going to get a cold from this, aren't I? Tony thought miserably. He yelled out, "THIS IS SERIOUSLY BAD FOR MY ARC REACTOR!"

"WILL YOU STOP GOING ON ABOUT THAT?!" Clint yelled back, annoyed. Here they were, being sprayed by freezing cold water, and Tony was going on about his arc reactor?!

"It's kinda important for my continued lifespan!" Tony exclaimed offended at the way Clint was treating the issue.

Oh yes, I forgot about that, Clint thought sheepishly.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! Tony and Clint were deaf for about a minute or so as they watched the jack-in-the-box get hit by four bullets. Apparently, Natasha had enough with it and decided to murder it. Tony gazed around uncertainly and gingerly approached the jack-in-the-box, which had collapsed and was becoming smaller and smaller by the second. He poked it with his foot and it collapsed into snow.

"I think it's safe," Tony announced, relieved. He didn't think he could take anymore of that.

"ACHOO!" Thor sneezed.

"Bless you," Steve spoke automatically before sneezing himself. "Achoo!"

Tony opened his mouth to make what probably would've been a snarky comment but unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you looked at it, he sneezed. "AcHOo!"

"Achoo!" went Clint.

"Achoo!" went Natasha.

"Achoo!" went Bruce.

Tony looked around saw that they were all shivering and came to a conclusion, "Loki's made us all sick. From now on, I hereby declare that if we get sick from drowning by a jack-in-the-box, it shall be called the Loki-sickness—ACHoo!"

"Bless you," Bruce said, before sneezing again.

"Ugh,I hate being—Achoo!— sick," Tony grumbled, then brightened. There was at least one good thing that could come from this. He eagerly asked, "Who wants hot chocolate?"

There was a mad scramble to see who could enter the building first. Little did they know, Loki had already stolen all of their precious hot chocolate. He had, of course, anticipated the situation already and acted accordingly. The only thing worse than having a cold was not having any hot chocolate to make you feel better. In fact at this very moment, he was watching them with a smirk as he contently sipped the hot chocolate which he had stolen- er, sorry, liberated.

Credits: madscientistavenger gave me the flood and jack in the box idea.

Fun Fact: I had a cold when I wrote this the first time, I had a cold when I rewrote this, and now I have another cold. If you have a cold, and want sympathy, review! If you don't and want to give me sympathy, review! Review no matter what you do!