Notes: In which there are experiments in physics, and Tony corrects an oversight of mine. Apologies for the very truncated Yule observances mentioned here. I seem to have forgotten to include them.

Warnings: None needed.

Chapter Nine

Loki, Annie, and Steve were the last to join the sliding party, but no one seemed to notice: Tony, Jane, and Clint were involved in a lively argument concerning whether there should be a plain aluminum pole raised in honour of the day.

"Nope, that was added for the Seinfeld episode," Tony insisted. "My research indicates it wasn't part of the original Festivus. And it's not that I don't trust Thor's ability to keep his temper, but I think it might be tempting fate a little bit to put what amounts to a lightning rod in the middle of the living room. No offense, Thor."

"Tony makes a great deal of sense," said Thor easily. "For once." Tony made a face at him and looked up the stairs as Loki and the others descended.

"And here's everyone, I think," he changed the subject. "Let's move 'em out."

The "crazy carpets" were bundled together under a tarpaulin, in the same building where the tree was still awaiting their attention. Everyone took a moment to admire the tree, then each of them chose one of the identical blue plastic mats and followed Tony back out of the building.

Today, fortunately, there was a plowed track leading to their destination, which turned out to be a large sloping pasture. The group climbed over a stone wall at the edge of the track, and found themselves standing at the top of a fairly steep snowy incline, which eventually flattened out to allow for a gradual slowing-down run across a long plain.

"Well," said Rhodey, "that looks just about perfect." He glanced at Tony. "You want to christen it?"

"Sure," Tony agreed, unrolled his crazy carpet (the cold plastic showed a definite tendency to want to roll itself up again) and made a sort of diving bellyflop onto the slope.

The previous day had been warmish, for winter, but the temperature had dropped again overnight, and the snow had settled into a sort of crust on the hill, where it was not as deep as on the flat.

As a result, Tony took off as though under rocket propulsion, gliding at high speed down the hill, sailing over a few unexpected bumps, and incidentally providing a most interesting illustration of the Doppler effect on sound waves because he was screaming in delight all the way down. Scamp was unable to resist setting off in pursuit, and went bounding down the hill yapping in excitement.

The crazy carpet finally lost momentum when Tony was roughly half a mile away, and he rather dramatically allowed himself to flop over sideways, before waving one arm in encouragement to the others. Scamp rushed up and began to lick his face, which Loki knew from experience was a peculiar feeling.

"Well," said Clint, "that looks promising." And without further ado, he dove headfirst down the hill after Tony.

Loki and Annie, who had decided to share a carpet, glanced at each other. "I think I understand the physical principles involved," he said.

"Oh, good," Annie replied, wrapped her arms around his neck, and held on as Loki threw them both down the slope.

It flashed through Loki's mind that, if this had been a childhood pastime in Asgard, he might have been cured of his fear of the cold at a much younger age. The sensation of gliding down the hill was very much like flying, and the cold air whipping at his face was exhilarating rather than distressing, even when his eyes began to tear. Annie's shrieks were left behind as they sped down the slope, and Loki was only vaguely aware of Thor, with his greater weight, sliding past them.

As the slope leveled out and their speed decreased, Loki was able to look around- just in time to throw his arms up as they collided with Tony and Clint, who were about to start the climb back up the hill. The two Avengers went down in a pile that effectively impeded the progress of Loki and Annie's crazy carpet, and they all ended up in a tangle of arms and legs- except for Annie, who was curled up laughing a few feet away when Mitchell and George went flying past her.

George's shrieks were even shriller than Annie's.

Rhodey was quite right, climbing up the hill between runs provided them with considerable exercise. As they toiled back up the slope yet again, Loki did his best to keep an unobtrusive watch on Steve, looking for any signs of misery. He was pleased and relieved to see the captain laughing as he returned the knitted hat Agent Hill had lost in a collision with Bruce and Agent Coulson at the bottom of a run. He looked just as flushed and overheated as everyone else, and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself.

Having no wish to single Steve out or make him feel conspicuous, Loki turned away. As it happened, he did so just as Clint, flying down the hill with Natasha sitting on the carpet behind him, made a most agile move to his feet, in the manner of one riding a surfboard, and attempted to tackle Loki.

Having only a split-second to duck or dodge, Loki instead bent his knees and met Clint rather in the same manner as would one of the Alouettes of Montreal, in the football game they had all watched at Thanksgiving. Natasha, whose primary job was apparently to keep the carpet steady, grabbed Loki around the knees as Loki caught Clint by the waist, and all three of them tumbled into a solid object that turned out to be Director Fury. It was most fortunate that Fury did not react with violence, since Loki was laughing too hard to even cast a protective forcefield around them.

"Sorry, boss," Clint said cheekily. "We just wanted to see if we could do it."

"Might be a handy technique for a sneak-attack someday," Natasha explained, with a straight face, and patted Loki, on whom she was currently sitting. "Sorry about that, you just happened to be the handiest target."

"Also, we thought you might have a higher centre of gravity than your brother," Clint added. "Hey, Thor," he added, as that individual and Steve reached down and began to sort out the tangle.

"Hey, Clint," Thor replied amiably, setting the archer on his feet and turning to brush snow from Loki. "No harm has been done?" he said, his tone making it a question.

"None," Loki giggled. He glanced at Clint and Natasha and called, "You may look forward to my vengeance at a later date."

"Much later," Tony advised, looking at the sky. "I have no idea what time it is, but I'm getting damn hungry." He looked around at the others. "What do you say we have one more run, and then make our way back to the house?"

The suggestion was not met with nearly as much whining as Loki might have expected, but then again he was tired and breathless himself, and so understood the fully human members of the party might be reaching the limits of their endurance. After his mistake the day before, he was disposed to be a little careful of them.

And speaking of those of whom Loki wished to take care, as the party trudged back down the trail toward the house, he and Annie fell in beside Steve. The captain was pink-cheeked and cheerful, and it seemed wholly unnecessary to ask how he fared.

Despite knowing Steve was of a transparently honest disposition, certainly not one to fester in hurt or resentment, Loki quietly asked anyway.

"I'm fine, thanks Loki," Steve said, with what certainly appeared to be a genuine smile. "I'm warm enough as long as I'm moving, and I think that was the best fun I've had since I, since I woke up. Since before the war, actually." His glance included Annie. "Thank you both for the encouragement."

Loki smiled back, feeling ridiculously a little warmer yet, and they walked in companionable silence back to the house.

~oOo~

It was beginning to occur to Loki that he really should adjust his usual routine of beginning his morning with a bath or shower: this was the second day in a row that he had instead needed the bath in the middle of the day, after some energetic activity. Also, he was running through his clean clothing at a remarkable rate, and foresaw the requirement to do laundry before much more time had passed.

However, he was too hungry to worry about that right now, and besides was not yet out of clean undergarments. Resolving to ask Tony later about the location of laundry facilities, Loki betook himself back downstairs to join the others.

He found Annie, Scamp, and the kittens in the kitchen, helping Mrs. Coulson make the marinara sauce.

"I'm so glad you told me," Mrs. Coulson was saying as he entered. "I nearly always put garlic in tomato sauce, and I'd hate to make anyone sick."

"It's not exactly an allergy," Annie was saying, as she mashed the contents of a can of tomatoes. "But he does feel quite uncomfortable when he eats it by mistake, so we try to be careful."

"Very wise of you," Mrs. Coulson agreed, and looked up to smile at Loki.

"May I offer my assistance?" Loki asked. Marinara sauce was one of the first Midgardian foods Annie had taught him to prepare, and besides he found he enjoyed participating in making meals.

"Would you mind chopping some more onions?" Mrs. Coulson requested. "We're going to need quite a batch of sauce for a group this size."

"With pleasure," Loki replied, carrying the onions and a sharp knife to the sink to peel them under running water.

The sauce was bubbling gently away in a large pot when the others began to gather, and Agent Coulson took over the business of making the spaghetti. Pepper gently organized the remainder of the group into setting places at the table. This took some work, since most of them looked badly in need of a nap and were not exactly focusing.

"You know what, guys," Tony said, as he set a basket of bread rolls at each end of the table, "I seem to have forgotten to set aside a specific time for Yule observances. Loki and Thor, I'm so sorry. What do you say to lighting the Yule log tonight, and having mulled wine and ginger cookies while we decorate the tree?"

Loki glanced sideways at Thor as Tony spoke. It had of course been some time since Loki had celebrated Yule- his banishment from Asgard had ended only the previous summer, and he had really not had the heart to suggest holding any observances in Bristol before that. Not when they would only remind him of a home he could no longer claim, and which surely felt itself well rid of him.

Yule could be a boisterous and noisy time of year, which Loki often enjoyed as much as anyone. But when they were very young children, Thor and Loki had been allowed to sit up in their parents' private quarters, drinking a very weak concoction of cider, water, and spices that approximated the adults' mulled wine, and eating special ginger biscuits made only at that time of year. Those were his favourite memories of Yule, feeling his eyes grow heavy as he leaned for once against his mother instead of a nurse, watching flames dance on the king's private Yule log. He recalled fighting not to fall asleep, because he knew he would awaken back in the nursery.

There was no way Tony could have known any of this, unless Thor had told him. And there was no reason for Thor to know these were the elements Loki would have chosen to include. Loki wondered whether, after speaking to Thor, Tony had chosen them because of their simplicity, or whether Thor also remembered those moments with especial fondness, and had told Tony so.

"That sounds very pleasant, Tony," Loki said now. "Thank you."

"Great," Tony said, with a relieved smile. "We've got some beautiful hardwood, I hope we can find a good Yule log."

"I have no doubt," Thor spoke up, also smiling.

"Good," Tony repeated, and glanced toward the kitchen. "Looks like the food's ready, so let's get our plates and then we can hold the Airing of Grievances."

The food was perfect, in Loki's mind, the sauce having a wonderful rich taste of tomato and basil that was complemented with a little grated Parmesan cheese. He had not realized quite how hungry he was until his plate was before him.

Everyone else seemed to feel the same way, and so there was a period of near-silence in which everyone concentrated on their meals. Although he was doing his best to support every aspect of these celebrations, Loki really was in no hurry for the Airing of Grievances to begin: he felt much too contented to think of anything to complain about. And really, what had he to criticize, with a home and friends, and kittens rubbing against his ankles, and everyone here making such a point to ensure he felt included?

Tony, however, refused to skip this most important observance, and as the nominal head of the household, he exercised his right to begin.

"I have a grievance against the sponsors of Formula One telecasts," he proclaimed. "Other sports, they have breaks for the broadcast to go to commercials. With F1, the announcers can be in the middle of explaining why, why Red Bull's called Vettel in to change tires early, or something, and in the middle of a sentence the broadcast goes to a commercial and the race ends up this little muted box in the corner of the screen, so you miss the explanation and you can't see the race properly no matter how big your TV is. And you always come back to the broadcast to find out something really exciting happened that you couldn't see, and they've already finished showing the replays. It's infuriating."

Oh, well, if this was the sort of grievance they were meant to air-

"I also find that frustrating," Loki agreed. And then he thought of something of his own. "I have a grievance against those who make packaging for scissors, which- ostensibly for safety reasons- are made of solid plastic that would challenge the most accomplished sorcerer to escape. The packages are almost impossible to open without extremely sharp and sturdy scissors, which you do not have because that is the reason you are purchasing scissors in the first place. I have no idea how mortals resolve this dilemma."

"How do you resolve it?" Agent Hill asked.

"I? Oh, I know a useful spell that encourages the scissors to chew their own way out," Loki explained recklessly. If Mrs. Coulson already knew he was an alien, she probably also knew he was a sorcerer. "The only difficulty is, they are sometimes feeling rather cranky and difficult by the time they escape."

There was rather a pause after this revelation, which made Loki worry that he had gone too far. And then Jane began to giggle, which set off first Pepper and Annie and then everyone else. And then Jane took her turn to inveigh against the iniquities of grant-awarding agencies which insist on the electronic submission of forms that must be printed and filled out by hand, and then turned once more into a digital format to be attached to an email, instead of providing a version that could be filled out and submitted in a single step.

"Seriously, it would be faster to send them by owl!" she insisted.

"If you're serious about that, Loki would probably help you out," George spoke up.

Bruce had a similar grievance against the administration of universities, fortunately not one that made him angry. Everyone managed to find a minor complaint that made the others laugh, particularly Thor, who thought the manufacturers of toasters should put sturdier control levers on their products, so that innocent persons merely wishing for a nice slice of toast or a warm Pop-Tart would not find the said lever snapping off in their hands under practically no pressure at all.

"We do go through more toasters than your average family," Tony agreed. "Is that everybody?" He looked around, as Clint got up to collect empty plates to carry to the kitchen. "Yes? Okay, then. I think this concludes our Festivus observ- "

Tony's remark was cut short when Clint, who was walking behind his chair, set his stack of plates on the sideboard, grabbed Tony around the neck and shoulder, and flipped him deftly- and remarkable gently- out of his chair onto the floor on his back, then knelt on him.

Smiling cheerfully down at the pinned head of the household, Clint practically sang,

"No, I think this concludes our observances. Happy Festivus, everybody."

"Happy Festivus, Clint," Tony replied, with remarkable aplomb. "Now let me up, you idiot."