2. Creeping Winter
"Did you find them all?"
Toothiana was nervously fluttering around in her palace, or at least as much as her damaged wing allowed her to. The palace was a mess. Well, it had seen worse times, of course. What Pitch had done this time was nothing compared to his previous attack on Punjam Hy Loo, when he had captured all of Toothiana's fairies and stolen all of the children's memories. This time Pitch's army of Nightmares had been much smaller, and he had merely struck fast and grabbed an armful of memory boxes and run. It had been just to provoke them, Toothiana knew. But why? Pitch was still weak from his defeat not too long ago. Why waste energy on such a petty attack?
Well, of course taking any memories was a terrible offence, and it had taken the Guardians an entire night to chase Pitch down and beat him somewhere over New York. And in the scuffle the memory boxes had fallen, scattered in a terrible moment when time slowed down and Toothiana had been afraid the boxes would just shatter and be lost forever. Of course they hadn't. She had known that, but a moment of panic didn't care about reason. And in that moment of panic, Pitch had disappeared as well.
Her mini-fairies gathered around her. They had all worked relentlessly to recover all the boxes, and Toothiana felt both pride and regret when she saw how hard the fairies had worked and how worn out some of the fairies were. She wished she could have been there with them, but the other Guardians had insisted she should stay back and take care of her wing that had taken quite a nasty hit from a Nightmare. So she had stayed behind in her palace to lead the operation of recovering the memories. Now all of her fairies had returned, and she congratulated them and hurried to the hall where the memories were stored.
Every child had their own box, and every box had its place. And every tooth had a place in the box. Now Toothiana flew along the corridor, sometimes wincing in pain and walking when her wing was aggravated too much. She counted the boxes there, knowing which places should be empty and which shouldn't. Her check was over much sooner than it should have been possible, considering there were billions of boxes in her possession. Her worry hastened her onwards, and when she was done she returned to one of the central rooms of the palace. Her mind wasn't at ease.
"So, did they find them all?"
It was asked in a booming voice with a Russian accent. Toothiana turned her birdlike head towards the large, bearded man who was sitting in the corner of the room. She shook her head and North looked worried under his white beard.
"One is missing," Toothiana said quietly, "But at least it's only one. They did a great job."
A small, round, golden man nodded his head vigorously. Toothiana's fairies chirped their thanks.
"They have to get back to teeth-collecting now, though," Toothiana continued, "Their sisters need their help. I'll dispatch one of them to fetch the last box and go with her."
"And what about Pitch?" asked a tall, grey bunny, "He's still out there."
"We will find him," North assured the others, "Sandy promised to look for him, no?"
Sandy nodded his head again, his wild golden crown of hair bouncing up and down.
"And we'll do our part, too," said Bunnymund, and his long ears twitched with what Toothiana assumed was itch to get into action.
One of Toothiana's fairies chirped near Toothiana's face. Toothiana glanced at her and smiled.
"You want to volunteer? That's great! I'll come with you, then."
"Hey, I can go with her, if that's okay?" a young voice spoke with an audible smile.
Toothiana looked at Jack Frost, and gratitude warmed her heart.
"You'd do that, Jack? I mean, I can go there myself, but..."
Jack smiled, and seeing his sparkly white teeth warmed Toothiana's heart even further.
"Hey, you need to rest your wing. I'll take care of it."
The mini-fairy buzzed over to Jack and nuzzled his cheek. Jack let out a laugh.
"Baby Tooth! That tickles!"
"You just remember to be careful, Jack," North reminded the boy.
Jack smirked.
"I'm always careful."
Bunnymund rolled his eyes and Toothiana had to agree with that gesture. But even though the boy was anything but careful, he could definitely take care of himself. That much was certain.
True to his word, Tony spent the day with the tooth box. There wasn't much new he could learn about it, except that the teeth inside were baby teeth and apparently a perfect set. Either some family's kid was really organized when it came to fallen out pieces of bone or somewhere there was a creep with a fascination for collecting kids' teeth. And a fondness for very good and durable puzzle boxes. Tony had tried to very scientifically break the box after fruitlessly trying to open it. The box wasn't even showing cracks after being smacked with a hammer and blasted with a laser cutter. It was all very perplexing, and Tony could only stop thinking about it during the night, which he – also true to his word – spent with Pepper. It was a very nice night, and Tony was a bit disappointed when Pepper had to leave the next day to take care of some business in Colorado. Talking to Pepper always made so many things clearer. Well, she would be gone only for a few days, at least. A long few days that Tony would be spending alone with the puzzle box with teeth in it that was putting up a stubborn fight.
After a frustrating morning Tony decided to declare a truce with the box and turned back to planning renovations for his tower. The floors for each of the Avengers would really be a nice touch. Then he could save money by not having to order more huge consonants to replace the ones fallen off from his STARK-logo at the roof of his tower. And use that saved money for the new personal Avenger-floors which would be way more expensive than a few new letter-shaped lights.
The summer weather had indeed changed during the night, and it seemed to stay cooler than what was normal for July in New York. Tony set the heating in the tower to comfortable levels and didn't bother throwing a jacket over his T-shirt even when he briefly wandered outside, maybe out of some bored stubbornness that made him rebel against the weather. The chilly wind bit his face and ruffled his dark hair almost mockingly.
It was afternoon when he was contacted by S.H.I.E.L.D. He wasn't surprised. In fact, he had been waiting for it. The law-enforcement unit that had started the whole Avengers-initiative was nowadays extra paranoid. Well, everyone was extra paranoid, to be fair. Tony opened up a screen for the stern, dark-skinned face of Nick Fury, who didn't waste time for greetings.
"You were near the explosion, Stark," Fury said bluntly as if the whole world knew about it, "What do you know about it?"
"What makes you think I was there?" Tony asked, "Well, I was, actually, but I have no idea what it was."
"Neither do we," Fury said, sounding surprisingly enough almost honest, "And if it isn't repeated, there's not much hope of knowing. But if it does happen again..."
"It means it's probably something we should worry about," Tony finished, "I'm looking into it."
"We know you are. And I want you to report anything you find out about it."
Tony thought about the puzzle box that was now on a table in his living room. At the moment it didn't feel very important. At least not like anything S.H.I.E.L.D. should know about.
"It was energy," he said when Fury seemed to be expecting some sort of insight from him, "Different from anything I've seen before... maybe. I didn't get a good enough look at it."
Yep. He might inform Fury about the tooth box when he got it open.
Fury asked him a few more questions and informed him that they didn't know more about the lights either and that more S.H.I.E.L.D. -agents would be dispatched into Manhattan. It was of course less than what Fury really knew, but Tony didn't push it. It wouldn't be of any use. He impatiently switched off the screen when Fury let him and slumped to the nearest chair. Outside, the temperature had dropped a few degrees, and the highest windows of Manhattan were starting to get foggy. A lonely bird fluttered across the sky.
Something woke Tony up with a start. He was in full awareness very quickly, and then he had the mind to wonder at what point he had fallen asleep to begin with. He had worked in his lab until it got dark, and then... well, he was still in the lab. He blinked in the brightly lit room and sensed something fishy about it all. He definitely hadn't been tired enough to fall asleep in the middle of some very interesting design-work. Had he been knocked out somehow? It didn't feel like it, but something was definitely wrong.
The windows of the Stark Tower were fogged up, with delicate frost swirls creeping up the windowpanes. The temperature was closer to wintry conditions than to a cool summer night. Tony looked at the screens displaying a security report and realized it was the quiet but effective alarm that had woken him up. At least his new system seemed to be working even in action and not just during test-runs. Tony studied the screens for a moment, an intense frown creasing his forehead. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary on camera. But there had to be something there. Otherwise he wouldn't have been alerted. So what was...?
He looked at the other screens displaying heat signatures and detecting different types of energy. Some of those functions were what he had just updated to the system a couple of days ago, and now they seemed to be paying off already. Whoever was in the building had disguised themselves well from regular cameras and had somehow gotten inside through all the security measures in the tower, but even they couldn't fool all of his detectors. Tony felt like he had to give himself a pat in the back for that system. He quickly enlarged the screens that actually showed something. The intruder was in his private living quarters, in his living room to be exact. It was a cold blob of energy on the screen, moving slowly towards a table in the corner. The same table where Tony had left the puzzle box with teeth in it.
Tony shook his head in irritation. It was time to let the intruder know that one didn't just walk into Tony Stark's home and steal from him. He quickly strapped on the bracelets that he could easily signal the Iron Man suit with. It was more of a precaution; he doubted he would need the suit, considering there were about a dozen ways he could subdue the intruder with just voice commands that controlled his security system. He commanded the place to be locked down right away, something he had already thought done. But apparently there had still been some route open. He walked silently into his living room and checked the surroundings. The windows were covered in frost, frost that kept growing even as Tony watched. Well, that was odd, especially now in July. In fact, the whole room was getting steadily chillier.
Then Tony's eyes finally fell on the intruder. And whatever he had been expecting, this was definitely not it.
Author's Note: I might be stretching RotG's belief-rules a bit in future chapters but hopefully in a sort of sense-making way. The story might have had a bit of a slow start, but the thing is: I like build-up so now you have to suffer that too.
And also: wow, you guys are so supportive! That makes me so happy! Just keep those lovely reviews coming! Unless of course you don't want to, that's okay too.