14. Nightmares
Bunnymund hopped across the rooftops so quickly that even North and Thor seemed to have some trouble keeping up. But Bunnymund was too focused on the scents around him to really pay attention to much else. His surroundings were a mess of different smells, all soaked in that wrongness that normally surrounded Pitch, but Bunnymund could still discern the scent of metal and the strange energy source that was Stark.
Toothiana joined Bunnymund, her wings keeping her easily beside him even as he ran faster. Toothiana pointed her fairies to their spots on the battlefield as quickly and easily as she instructed them on their tooth-retrieving duties.
"No sign of Pitch or the others in the eastern parts," Toothiana translated after one of her fairies chattered her report, "Mr. Banner is on a rampage somewhere in the north."
Well, good to know. Bunnymund would prefer not running into the green man when the beast was "on a rampage". He was a bit iffy about the whole concept of the man turning into a giant green rage monster that was incredibly hard to control.
Bunnymund slowed his pace when the scent of Pitch suddenly assaulted him. The whole Manhattan was basically full of darkness, but Bunnymund could still sense a more dense dark spot that was the Nightmare King. His nose scrunched up in apprehension. He stopped running, looking suspiciously at a neon sign that was glowing its migraine pink into the night. If Pitch was somewhere nearby, then where was Stark? Or Frostbite and Rogers? Had Pitch managed to get away from all of them?
"Tooth," Bunnymund said in a low voice, "Something's not right."
Toothiana stopped to hover in the air, her swords at the ready. Her mini-fairies zipped all around her, destroying approaching Nightmares and Fearlings as fast as they could. But they couldn't withstand the sudden assault of a nightmare scythe that hit out of nowhere. Toothiana screamed. Some of her fairies fell towards the streets below, and Bunnymund and Toothiana spun to face the shadow that had attacked them. But Pitch wasn't there any longer. Bunnymund sensed it a split-second before Pitch struck. Bunnymund was sent flying and his back hit the pink neon sign. He could feel the glass tubes breaking on impact. The shards of glass stung, and Bunnymund used that second he had before he fell back on the roof to be grateful of the fact that neon lights didn't conduct heat. It would have been embarrassing to end up with a curly Night burned into his back, even when it would just heal in a few moments.
"Pitch!" Toothiana hissed, "Show yourself!"
Bunnymund felt someone grab his shoulder and pull him back to his feet. It was Thor. The Thunder God and North had caught up with them. Good. It seemed Pitch had got strong during his rampage in New York. They needed all the help they could get.
Pitch materialized a few feet away from them, holding his scythe and looking unnervingly smug. Bunnymund readied his boomerangs.
"You just keep coming, don't you?" Pitch said ominously, "How many of you do I need to take care of before you stay down?"
"What do you mean by that?" North demanded, pointing a sabre at Pitch, "What have you done?"
"Nothing much," Pitch said, "Well, I admit your little Frost isn't doing so well right now... and neither is Mr. Stark."
Bunnymund tightened his grip on his weapons. His anger flared. As did his worry.
"What. Did. Ya. Do?" he asked slowly.
Pitch's only response was one of his more murderous grins. Bunnymund didn't like it at all.
Steve took cover behind a small rooftop shed that housed the entrance to a stairwell as well as some antennae on top of it. He set Jack down so that the boy was sitting against the wall, quickly restraining the boy's free hand when it went to feel the spike that was still lodged in his chest.
"Stop that," Steve commanded, "I'll pull it out."
Jack looked like he didn't really know what was going on. His eyes were red-rimmed and he stared blindly at Steve as if not understanding why people probably shouldn't try to treat lung trauma on their own. The kid's face had gained an unhealthy shade of grey at some point. In short, he looked like he should have passed out ages ago, but he hadn't. Sometimes Steve wondered if being very resistant to damage was a blessing or a curse. Jack said something in a quiet voice, so quiet that Steve almost didn't catch it:
"Is... is my sister... okay?"
It took a second before Steve realized Jack wasn't really in the present any longer. The boy needed to get treated now.
"It's you who's hurt," Steve simply said, "Now let's focus on that."
Not waiting for an answer from the delirious boy, Steve inspected the spike and then gripped it near where it had pushed through the boy's chest. Some of the boy's almost black blood dripped onto Steve's hand. It wasn't warm like human blood was supposed to be. It felt disturbingly cold even through Steve's glove. Steve ignored it the best he could. His other hand held the boy's shoulder in a firm grip and gave the kid a little shake. That seemed to bring Jack back to the threshold of awareness.
"You might want to bite down onto something," Steve said.
Very slowly, Jack lifted his hand to pull forward the frosted hood of his sweatshirt. He coughed and red splattered onto the fabric before he clenched his teeth around it. He gave Steve a quick thumbs-up before he let his arm fall limply to his side.
Steve yanked the spike out as quickly as he could. Jack let out a muffled scream, and Steve would have felt immensely sorry for the boy if he had had time for that. Now he had to settle for a quick twinge of sympathy. He threw the strange black spike to the concrete, where it shattered and faded into black sand with an ominous hiss. Jack collapsed into a trembling heap, his arms tightly wrapped around his torso. As much as Steve would have wanted to let the boy have a break, he couldn't do that before he had assessed the damage.
"Okay, you're doing good," Steve said, "Now, I just need to see the wound."
Jack closed his eyes for a moment, trying to take a deep breath. He still couldn't, but at least he seemed to be a bit more coherent than before. He nodded slowly in response to Steve's coaxing, trembling hands rolling up the bloodied hoodie to reveal a wound which to be fair wasn't quite as bad as Steve had thought. It seemed that the moment the spike had been pulled out, the injury had started to heal. Frost spread over the injury, stitching the edges back together. Normally that would have been very alarming, but Steve supposed it was normal for the winter kid. What worried Steve, however, was the inky black spot on the skin around the wound. A black sand infection?
"Is that bad?" Steve asked, "To be hit by that sand?"
Jack pulled the shirt back down and pressed his hand over the wound, applying pressure. His breathing seemed to be getting back to normal, and he wasn't coughing up blood any more. At least that was good.
"It's..." Jack winced in pain, "Yeah, it's pretty bad. Pitch... likes to corrupt things."
"Corrupt?" Steve echoed with concern, "How?"
"Don't worry... I don't... I don't think this is enough to actually do that... I just... need a moment..."
"You sure?" Steve asked.
Jack curled up into a ball, his other hand never letting go of the staff. He rested his head on his knees, looking utterly exhausted.
"I don't know," he admitted, "Usually we can... get better from anything with a bit of belief."
"What?" Steve had that feeling again. The feeling that he wasn't quite sure what the conversation was about any longer, "Do I need to clap my hands or something?"
"No," Jack said and looked almost amused, "It wouldn't work. Pitch may be a lying, manipulative bastard, but he was right when he said you guys don't really believe."
Belief. These Guardians seemed to like to talk about that a lot. They had stated that seeing them required belief. It sounded very surreal, but if it was true, it meant the Avengers did believe in the Guardians. They could see them, couldn't they?
"I don't understand," Steve finally said.
"It's okay," Jack replied dazedly, "Just focus on beating those shadow-guys and let the Guardians worry about the belief and all-the-good-things-in-life-department."
He covered his mouth with his hand and coughed dryly. Steve carefully laid his hand on the kid's shoulder.
"Well, for now I'm not going anywhere to beat anyone," Steve said, "You're hurt. I'm not the type to leave my comrades behind."
Their alliance might be a rather abrupt and tenuous one, but it was an alliance. S.H.I.E.L.D. might still be suspicious of the Guardians, but Steve could tell that the Guardians were not bad people. Whatever they were, they stood for what they believed in.
"Besides," Steve went on, "You stayed with me when I was freezing in the Arctic. I might as well repay the favour while I'm at it."
Some colour had returned to Jack's face. It was not much, but there wasn't much colour to regain anyway.
"So you don't think I was lying when I told you about that?" the boy asked, and from his tone of voice Steve could guess it was important.
"Why would you lie about that?"
Jack smiled. He tried to stand up, but didn't even get into a crouch before he had to lean to a wall.
"Hold on!" Steve tightened his grip on the boy's shoulder to steady him, "What are you doing?"
"Pitch isn't beaten yet," Jack said in a quiet, hoarse voice, "We need to get to the others."
"You can barely stand!" Steve argued, "And you just said there might be something corruptive in that wound!"
"I'm feeling okay enough!" Jack snapped, "If you help me, I'll be fine. Just... believe me."
There was something in the incredibly determined, fierce glare Jack gave Steve that almost made Steve believe the kid really was fit enough to fight. There wasn't much choice, really, unless one wanted to just hide and wait for the shadow beasts to sniff them out.
"I'll fight," Jack said with admirable conviction, "There are people in danger. They need to trust that someone can protect them now that they themselves can't."
It was true. People didn't need fear like the Boogeyman had claimed. Well, that wasn't entirely true. Of course a healthy dose of fear was needed to keep people careful. But this... this panic and paranoia wasn't the good type of fear. Under the threat of war and alien attacks and all of the bad things that were going on all around the world, what people really needed was trust. Hope. Wonder. Dreams. All of the things the Guardians fought for. All of the things this Pitch wanted to snuff out. What had Jack said again back at the base?
"...we do our best to protect people's lives too. But with the things we stand for, actually living those lives is much... nicer, don't you think?"
Yes. Steve really did think that. He knew a lot of people who were more cynical than him and who might say it was all a bunch of childish crap. But what did it matter? It was a moral from a children's story, yes. Simple and maybe a bit naïve. But most of the time those were the most effective ones.
"Okay, you win," he said, "What's your plan?"
Jack stood as straight as he managed, leaning to his staff and beaming at Steve with genuine joy despite the situation.
"My plan..." he took a deep breath and seemed to relish the fact that he could do that again, "is to go out there and have fun."
Tony didn't know where he was. He wasn't sure what had hit him either. He remembered the Boogeyman slashing him repeatedly with that scythe. Then... well, at the moment he was... somewhere. Somewhere where it was dark. He stood up from where he had been lying and took a sluggish step forward. Just that simple movement felt unreal and difficult. He couldn't see anything save for vague shapes draped in fog and darkness. Everything was still and silent. This place couldn't be New York, that was for sure. New York was never silent.
Tony almost stepped on something. He looked down and saw grains of that black sand hissing across the empty space he stood in. In the midst of the black particles Tony could see a shape that was vaguely humanoid. Upon closer examination turned it out to indeed be a human. A dead human. As soon as Tony realized he was staring at a dead person, his eyes adjusted as if just to hammer it all in. He was standing among corpses. There were people he recognized among them. There were innocent civilians... And there was Pepper. Her smile and her sharp, intelligent eyes were wiped away with blood and decay. Tony stared at her fearful, lifeless face and for a second he couldn't breathe. Pepper couldn't really be dead, could she? She was safe in Stark Tower. But recent events had proved that Stark Tower wasn't quite as safe as he would have liked... Tony's throat constricted. No. This wasn't right.
He struggled to look at his hands. Reality check. In one startled moment Tony knew he was in a dream. Or more accurately, in a nightmare. It was all a trick. Tony had to drag himself awake. It wasn't as easy as one might think. It was like trudging through a swamp. Pepper's lifeless face haunted him with every step, but he forced himself to push it aside for now. He had no time for that. If he stopped to angst about it now, it could really happen while he was moping in his subconsciousness. He turned his back on the dead and on his fears and kept moving. Golden tendrils of light leaked in through the darkness. Tony didn't question it. This was a dream. Anything was possible. The light brushed past him and chased the worst of the shadows away from Tony's path, as if leading him forward.
Tony cracked his eyes open. He saw a golden blur that sharpened into the round face of the Sandman. The little man smiled and clapped his small hands together when he saw Tony coming around. Tony coughed. His head weighed a ton and his chest felt like it was filled with shrapnel. Well, actually it would be more accurate to say that Tony was even more aware of the shrapnel in his chest than usually. His joints felt stiff when he pushed himself up from where he lay. He had apparently ended up knocked out on a metallic fire escape staircase. Not the most comfortable place in the world to take a nap in. Tony looked up and saw that he had fallen at least three stories before stopping on the metal grating. He also saw Natasha's red hair against the night sky. The woman was apparently keeping vigil on the roof while Goldilocks tried his best reviving Tony.
"You okay?" said a voice Tony hadn't taken to account yet.
Tony turned his head and saw Clint crouching beside him as well.
"Yeah," Tony said in a thick voice. He quickly opened his visor and let the cool night air enter directly into his lungs and cool him down, "What happened?"
The wind that hit Tony's face felt unbelievably refreshing. He let his forehead rest against the back of his metal-covered hand. Could one get hungover from nightmares? Well, Tony sure felt like that now. The Sandman mimed something and pictures appeared over the man's head again.
"Not helping," Tony sighed.
"He says you were really damn close to dying, or worse," Clint translated, his keen eyes staring at the Sandman's silent messages.
Tony looked blankly at his comrade.
"Was Pictionary championships a part of your special training?"
The Sandman looked at Tony rather indignantly. Tony supposed it was a bit uncalled for to joke after apparently just being narrowly saved from death, but he didn't care that much. Sarcasm was a good defence mechanism.
"I just pay attention," Clint shrugged, "We found you here pretty badly beaten and really out of it. Sandy here had to purge a lot of black sand out of you."
Tony pressed his forehead even more firmly against his hand. Fantastic. That was just what he needed: more foreign stuff in his system.
I was just in time, the Sandman wrote over his head, considerate enough to use actual English, You should be okay. All of the nightmare sand is out now.
"Good to know," Tony said, and he really meant it, "What else is going on? Did Steve get Frost treated?"
The startled look on the Sandman's face told Tony that the others didn't know about the fate of the kid yet. A question mark took shape above the Sandman, making the little guy look even more cartoonish than before.
"The Boogeyman stabbed the kid," Tony explained, "Steve got him out of the fight. I don't know how long ago that was, to be honest."
The Sandman looked even more alarmed at that, his tiny hands clenching into anxious fists. A few rather macabre sand-images flashed around the man. Clint frowned.
"Should we try to find them?" he asked.
The Sandman nodded. Clint turned back to Tony.
"Can you locate them?"
Tony let his mask cover his face again and put up his energy-filters, relieved to find that his suit was again fully functional. Trying to locate a specific energy signature from the mess around them was very headache-inducing, but Tony could work with it. His head was aching so much to begin with that he barely noticed the added discomfort. He would just have to focus on finding the cold spots. They were all over the place, but the source seemed to be quite close.
"That way, I think," Tony pointed.
They found Steve and Jack surprisingly quickly, even when they had to fly through those nightmare beasts. The two were apparently headed towards the biggest cluster of shadows, something that was incredibly stupid considering they weren't in a very good shape. Well, Steve seemed to be mostly doing fine, but the ice kid looked like he could drop from the air at any minute. The Sandman conjured up an exclamation point and waved frantically before steering his cloud of sand down to Steve and Jack. Clint and Natasha, who had been riding on the cloud as well landed on the rooftop when the sand dissolved and Sandy floated swiftly through the air to Jack.
"Sandy!" Jack was grinning from ear to ear, and he let himself land when the little man reached him, "Are you guys okay?"
Sandy frowned and grabbed Jack's shoulders, asking a string of apparently worried questions in images.
"There's no time for treatment," Jack replied when Sandy ended his interrogation with a question mark, "I'm okay enough. We have to get everyone together before this fight stretches on too long."
"I think it's too late for that," Tony pointed out, "This has already gone on for way too long."
Natasha cocked her gun.
"Then we'll end it now."
North hadn't expected the Nightmare King to get this powerful this quickly. The fear of a large city was a considerable boost, granted, but it was far from the global disbelief Pitch had caused not long ago. It might have been the added help of the Fearlings, or maybe just... North's thoughts were interrupted when Pitch swung his scythe at him. He hopped backwards, but the scythe slammed into his shoulder. North stumbled back, the pain crippling his arm for a second and his sabre clattering to the roof. He clutched his bleeding shoulder, wondering when the last time he had actually bled before now was. It was a funny thing to think about, but it kept his thoughts away from the pain and the possible nightmare sand -poisoning quite effectively.
North fought to keep his focus on Pitch, who stood in the middle of their battlefield seemingly without a care in the world. And as much as North hated to admit it, Pitch really didn't have that many reasons for worrying at the moment. More than half of the group that was supposed to stop him was missing and, if Pitch was telling the truth, some were also at least seriously hurt. And none of the group that still stood against Pitch was unscathed either.
Bunnymund had glass shards still sticking out of his back. It looked quite painful, but the Pooka seemed determined to ignore it. Bunnymund jumped ferociously at Pitch, who again sunk to cowardly tactics, disappearing into a shadow and appearing behind Bunny. North shouted a warning, but Toothiana was faster to act. She flung her small body in front of Pitch, her swords cutting two vicious slashes across Pitch's chest before the Nightmare King's counter-attack hit her. Toothiana fell, hitting the roof and not getting back up. Bunnymund gasped and growled at the same time, leaping at Pitch, closely follower by Thor. North hurried at the downed fairy, forgetting about his own wounds.
Toothiana twitched when North put his hand on her shoulder. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her middle, and North could see red mixing with the feathers on her right side.
"Tooth?" North asked fearfully, "Are you okay?"
Toothiana nodded, her face scrunched up in pain. Her mini-fairies gathered around her, letting out worried tweets. Toothiana struggled to her knees, letting out a hiss. There was a deep gash in her side that she tried to put pressure on as she moved. North frowned at that. This was not going well at all.
"I'll survive," Toothiana said, "How about you?"
"Am fine. But this is not working," North said quietly, "We need the others here as well."
"You're right," Toothiana sighed, "How did it get so bad in the first place?"
North looked forlornly at the sight before him. Bunnymund and Thor were fighting Pitch, both relentlessly getting back into the fight every time the Nightmare King knocked them away. But they were all tiring. And on the streets the people were getting anxious again. Their heroes didn't seem to be faring well. What little order they had managed to create was falling apart. North had no idea where the others were. What Pitch had said about Jack and Stark could have been just to demoralize them, but it was likely that it wasn't. What had happened to them?
"We have focused on wrong things," North replied to Tooth, "We never should have caused the Avengers trouble."
Toothiana bit her lip, staring at the fighters that were still standing.
"You're right. But now that it's done, we have to try to work with that. We are supposed to be allies now, and we have to keep it together till the end."
She stood on shaky legs. When she lowered her hand from her side, North could see that her wound had healed, with just a bit of nightmare sand among her feathers indicating anything had ever been there. North felt his own shoulder. It was a bit stiff, and the unnerving feeling of corruption burned it, but he could fight. At least for a while before they all succumbed to nightmares.
Toothiana had lost her swords when she had fallen, but North knew she could hold her own in battle even without them. She spread her wings and rose a few metres above the rooftop, zipping back into the fray. North sprinted after her, tackling a Nightmare out of his way. He lifted his remaining sabre when he saw Pitch appearing out of a shadow again, aiming a furious swipe at the Nightmare King. Pitch's eyes widened in surprise, but the man managed to duck under the strike, spinning around and backing away into darkness.
"Coward!" shouted Bunnymund, throwing a boomerang after the man to no avail.
Bunnymund was limping, North noticed. A Fearling had taken a bite out of the Pooka's left leg. It wasn't a pretty sight, and North could only hope it would heal just like all other injuries the Guardians had sustained. North hurried to steady the Pooka, but Bunny slapped his hand away impatiently.
"No time for that, Nick!" he growled, "Pitch! Where are ya?"
"Right here, rabbit."
Pitch's shadow spread across the rooftop and North, Toothiana, Bunnymund, and Thor all backed away instinctively when Pitch reappeared, taller and more foreboding than before. Pitch spread his arms as if welcoming them all to his realm of nightmares, which he was now very busy trying to expand to cover New York City.
"I'm sure you are all very tired of this by now. Look around you: you haven't really made any difference. If you think you can break the atmosphere of fear like you did in Burgess, you are mistaken. This time it'll take more than a few starry-eyed children to save you, Guardians."
North glanced at Thor, who stood tall among them. The Asgardian was just as resistant to damage as the Guardians, but even he was sporting a gash on his forehead and seemed to favour his right arm. Pitch followed North's gaze and his eyes glinted dangerously.
"I don't think a few superheroes are enough to save you either."
Thor lifted his hammer and lightning struck the roof, causing Pitch to halt his advance. Thunder boomed straight above them.
"Am I supposed to be impressed?" Pitch crossed his arms, looming above them all like a giant bird of prey, "My daughter can whip up fiercer storms than you ever could, Asgardian. And I have levelled entire constellations back in the good old days. You may call yourself a god, but that means nothing to me. I am not intimidated by the Moon, and I am not about to be intimidated by Asgard either."
"Impressed or not, we will stop you," Thor stated, "You have no hope of standing against all of us."
Pitch's smirk grew even more sinister.
"I've been doing fine so far. While you were busy bickering with each other, I had more than enough time to prepare. Your alliance is weak and easy to take apart. I can just take you down one by one. It has already started."
Pitch raised his hand and a tsunami of nightmare sand and Fearlings rose behind him. North moved forward to shield his comrades, a kind of a futile move considering the others were trying to do the exact same thing at the same time.
"I think I'll actually get four birds with one stone this time," Pitch said and let his hand fall.
"OUT OF THE WAY!" Thor yelled when the sand-wave collapsed towards them.
They all tried their best. But they were worn-out and injured. North could see his friends disappearing under the dark tide before the sand filled his field of vision and his feet left the roof. He was flung over the edge, and he was only dimly aware that he needed to grab onto something if he wanted to be spared from a long fall down. He reached out blindly when solid ground disappeared from under him and he grabbed what felt like cool metal. His shoulder burned and he almost passed out when his head disappeared under the assault of Fearlings and sand. The only thing that kept him from succumbing to darkness was somebody's limp body that suddenly collided with him, jolting him back to awareness. North's head broke above the wave of sand and he wrapped his free arm tightly around the body. His fingers closed around feathers instead of clothing. Toothiana.
North struggled to pull himself and Tooth up from where they hung. He rolled over the metal railing he had clutched and ended up sprawled on what turned out to be someone's balcony. He shook his head to clear it and turned his attention to Tooth. The fairy lay on her side next to North, eyes closed and shoulder blades rising and falling with heavy breaths. Her feathers were messed up, her wings tangled, and she was clutching a mini-fairy to her chest. She had probably caught her to protect her from the sand. The little one was first of the two to stir, chirping in panic when she saw her queen so unresponsive.
"Hush, little one," North said softly, crawling towards Toothiana and lifting the limp body to his arms, "All will be well."
Except it wouldn't be well if they kept this up. The battlefield had fallen into eerie silence, with only Pitch's quiet laughter piercing through the quietness. North stood slowly, feeling older than he should. Tooth's arm fell listlessly to the side. North balanced the small body on one arm the best he could and used his free hand to dig out a snowglobe. The portal he opened caused a flower pot to fall over and break, but that couldn't be helped. The owner of the house should be happy if the pot was the only thing that broke that night. North stepped through the portal, emerging on a roof a bit farther away from where Pitch still stood.
From his vantage point North could see that Bunnymund and Thor had apparently grabbed onto the edge of the roof and were now crawling back up. They came up to the roof and slumped right in front of Pitch. Neither of the warriors seemed to have the strength to continue the fight. North didn't blame them. He himself felt like just moving and carrying Tooth's feather-light body was too much. He fell to his knees and laid Toothiana to her side, carefully arranging her wings to their correct position. She stirred, her face scrunching up in pain.
"North?" she asked faintly when her eyes fluttered open, "What happened?"
"Pitch happened," North answered, "Try to rest. You are hurt."
Tooth shook her head.
"We're all hurt," she said.
North couldn't argue with that.
On the other roof, Pitch was busy savouring the moment which no doubt was very satisfying for him. North looked at the tall, dark monster that was now strolling towards Bunny and Thor. They needed help; North had to do something. But he couldn't move yet. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't summon enough energy for that. It wasn't lack-of-belief -related fatigue. He knew he still had plenty of believers, even though the ones in New York may have been on a bit shaky ground. But it had just been a very, very rough day for all of them. Those days always had the worst timing.
Pitch lifted his scythe above Bunny and Thor, and they seemed to prepare to move. But North feared they wouldn't be fast enough.
"Well," Pitch said triumphantly, "It has been fun."
There was a speck of red and gold in the dark behind Pitch. North focused on it, nudging Tooth's shoulder and pointing. Tooth squinted her eyes and her face brightened.
"Isn't that-?"
Yes. It was indeed Stark. And he wasn't alone.
Pitch's scythe fell. It shattered before it hit its mark.
The Boogeyman's face twisted into a mix of surprise and outrage. It was actually quite satisfying. The man turned sharply when his scythe broke with the force of Tony's repulsor ray. The Boogeyman's creepily glowing yellow eyes narrowed at the sight of Tony and his companion.
"You didn't think of starting the real fun without me, did you?" Tony quipped.
"I think that should be my line," spoke Jack, his grin a bit too tired to be convincing, "But it sounded kinda lame, so I'll let you have it."
"Oh, shut it, Ice Cube."
To Pitch's credit, he did seem to recover quickly from the surprise.
"You," Pitch said, "Shouldn't you both be dying right now?"
For all of the sneakiness and manipulation, this Boogeyman still couldn't avoid all of the flaws of villainy. Not making sure his downed enemies actually were killed was kind of a big oversight in Tony's opinion.
Jack pointed his staff at Pitch.
"Yeah, right. Maybe if you were the least bit competent. I think it's time for you to get back to facing your own nightmares again, Pitch."
"And that wasn't lame?" Tony asked.
"Cute," Pitch scoffed, "Do you think you can lighten the mood by turning this into a campy superhero-comic? Or do you genuinely try to make me feel threatened? Three Guardians and a god just tried it a second ago and look how well that went! Now a billionaire playboy and a winter sprite are trying their luck. You two are barely conscious to begin with."
"Well, okay, you got us, Pitch," Tony said, raising his hands in mock-surrender, "But we brought some friends who are feeling just fine. Guys?"
That was the cue. Steve, Natasha and Clint walked out of their hiding places, pointing their weapons at Pitch. The Boogeyman still didn't seem all that impressed. But then his attention was attracted towards the heavy footsteps on the top of a higher skyscraper. Pitch looked up, and Tony was immensely happy that he could witness the dawning realization on the Boogeyman's face.
The Hulk stood on the roof. The Sandman hovered near the green man's shoulder, holding two whips made of golden sand.
Author's Note: Sooooooooo yeah... My brain still isn't working at all and I've read through this so many times and I don't think I can make it any better. Which is sad because I think it should be way better than it is but what can I do except become a better writer? And be less tired? I BLAME THUNDER THAT IS TOTALLY COMING HERE! I can sense it... Plus it has been way too warm to really do anything. So I'm sure there are a LOT of typing errors in the chapters which you are free to point out! I'll try to re-read this (again again again) a bit later but I figured I need to post it now so I'm not so stuck with this.
So according to Wikipedia Thor's biological mother in the comics is Gaea... which would have made an interesting connection seeing how Gaea and Mother Nature are very similar... but at the same time it would make things complicated so I was kind of debating whether or not to mention Pitch's daughter (Mother Nature), but then I read that in the film-universe, Thor's mom is some other goddess named Frigga so dodged a bullet there. Oh yeah, spoilers: Pitch has a daughter who is Mother Nature. I guess everyone knew that already, however.
According to the internet, at least comic!Thor can also time-travel... Now I totally see Thor travelling back in time for some reason and Bunnymund appearing there to scold him for wanting to interfere in something.
I guess there will be two more chapters after this. Yeah, I know I said that before but now I mean it... maybe.