A/N: For teh-bluejay and Amelia who love the Avengers/MCU as much as I do. The song is by Bombay Dub Orchestra Remix.

Not sure what's happening? Don't know who the characters are? You can read the adventure with the Duckvengers in "Living On A Prayer" the title called "Live To Rise." A complete list of characters is listed in the notes at the end.

"Isn't snow supposed to be outside?"

As the voice spoke, a few droplets of water fell onto the feathers on Tony Mallard's head. Glaring up at the ceiling, Tony said, "Aren't you not supposed to be in my vents?" Running a hand through his feathers to disperse the moisture, Tony looked back down at his snow machine. "Get down, Barton."

With a muffled splat, the watery assassin landed next to Tony and peered over his shoulder. "Is it supposed to be making it snow in the living room, or has it gone rogue? Follow up question: if it has gone rogue, can I be the one to hunt it down and kill it?"

Tony scoffed. "Good luck trying to kill anything created by me."

"It's true, Bud," Jack said as he came into the room. Light on his feet as ever, he navigated his way over to Bud and Tony without making a sound. "Someone with more skill would have to take down one of Mallard's inventions."

Bud's eyes grew wide as he glanced between Tony and Jack. "Change of plans."

"There are no plans," Tony ground out, tightening a bolt on the snow machine.

"Jack and I get to take down your snow tech beast."

Tony opened his beak to reply, but Jack beat him to it. Hands on his hips, Jack glared at Bud. "Who says I want to team up with you?"

"You wound me!" Bud said dramatically, feigning injury. "But if it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get."

"There's no fight, there's no plans, there's nothing," Tony groused, setting the machine right-side up and watching it carefully. "It's doing exactly what it's supposed to do."

Bud and Jack studied the room as the snow machine started pumping out large gentle snowflakes, the living room turning into a wintry wonderland.

"Even for you, Mallard, this is eccentric," Jack said, leveling his cool gaze at Tony.

Under which he totally didn't shrink.

Okay, maybe a little. But that was smart to be afraid of the infamous assassin Black Jack.

Tony had never quite ruled out if Jack would decide to kill him in his sleep one day or not. He got the sense that Jack was biding his time, waiting until the team got too boring, or was no longer useful, and then would take them all out one by one.

Don't let appearances fool you: Jack was the most dangerous of the Duckvengers.

When Tony wasn't in his suit.

And you hadn't separated Megavolt from his Pop Tarts.

And Reggie hadn't gone all raging plant monster.

Then Jack was the most dangerous.

"Well, now we have a guaranteed white Christmas," Tony said, observing the snow with a smile on his beak. "You're welcome. Ah, just the duck I wanted to see!"

The elevator doors had opened, depositing a rumpled Reginald onto the floor. He blinked upon seeing the snow, but otherwise didn't seem phased.

"Reggie, baby, tell me how much you love my snow machine, which," he turned and held up a feathered finger out to the S.H.U.S.H. agents, "I am temporarily calling Frosty."

Jack rolled his eyes while Bud slumped. "Great, now I'm emotionally attached to it."

"Why did you build a snow machine?" Reggie asked.

"Oh, that," Bud said, eyes lighting up as he sat up straight again. "Forget my questions. Answer that one."

"I think we're missing the point here," Tony said, throwing an arm around Reggie and leading him fully into the room. "I've brought snow inside the Tower. All the splendor of Christmas right here in the living room."

"A room which we now can't use until all the snow has been cleaned up," Jack pointed out with a roll of his eyes.

"I'm sensing a lot of hostility here," Tony said. "Unwarranted. Hurtful. What's your verdict on Frosty, Doc?" Tony slapped Reggie on the back. "Some people," he glared at Bud, "threatened to kill him."

"Only if he went rogue!" Bud whined. "But then you went and named him and now I'll never be able to take the shot."

Tony turned back to Reggie. "So. Reg. Frosty. Genius, right?"

Reggie examined the machine in question, bent double and with his glasses perched on his beak. "It's designed well, Tony. Everything you make is designed well."

"Reg, please, you'll make me blush." Tony grinned.

"But I still want to know why you made Frosty in the first place," Reggie said, removing his glasses and folding them up as he observed Tony.

"What sorcery is this?" boomed Megavolt from across the room. Striding over to them, he said, "My friends, 'tis snowing indoors. It must be a powerful spell indeed to have done this."

"No magic, Percy Jackson, just good ol' fashioned science," Tony said.

"You have done this?" Megavolt asked, peering down at Tony.

Tony preened. "I have."

His face splitting into a huge grin, Megavolt slapped Tony on the back, nearly sending the billionaire sprawling to the snow-covered floor. "Very well done, indeed! Quite a feat to bring the out of doors in."

"Don't tell him that!" Bud said with a scowl. "He doesn't need anyone stroking his ego."

"But this is wonderful!" Megavolt boomed. "We can bring the festivities of winter within this very room."

"But why?" Jack pressed, all of them glancing over to Tony for an answer.

At that moment, the elevator emitted a 'ding' and opened its doors to reveal Cap and his bestest best buddy the whole wide world (seriously, they'd been reunited after 70 years apart; most romances weren't as strong), Drakey Barnes. Both ducks blinked at the scene before them. At the snow falling around the living room. At the rest of their household gathered around Frosty in various degrees of hypothermia.

Cap was the first to recover, glancing at Tony and asking, "What did you do?"

"I brought Christmas inside, Cap. Honestly, I'm starting to get a little disheartened by the fact that none of you are appreciating my genius here. Except for Megavolt. Which is why he's my favorite."

"Verily!" Megavolt exclaimed, smacking Tony on the back again.

"A little less force there, buddy," Tony coughed, trying to reclaim the breath stolen from him.

"Why would you want to bring snow inside?" Drakey grumbled, sending a dark look to the swirling white that was settling around the room. "It's freezing in here now."

"Something you should be familiar with, right, Red October?" Tony sneered.

He hated Drakey Barnes.

Okay, hate was a strong word.

But he didn't like him.

Drakey was grumpy, with a permanent scowl on his beak and always stalked around the Tower like a duck half dead. And sure, he'd spent the last 70 years brainwashed and committed heinous crimes he now had to find a way to live with, but smile every now and then, you know?

And he bore a resemblance to Tony with his large bill, short stature, and wiry frame. Which was just insult to injury. Especially because Drakey had more muscle than Tony.

Like… unfair.

Launchpad frowned at Tony. "That was uncalled for."

"But questioning my motives isn't?" Tony demanded. "No one has said anything positive about this, they just keep asking me why."

"Which you still haven't answered," Jack pointed out.

"Maybe because I don't want put on blast that none of us exactly had a normal childhood. Didn't want to bring up the bad memories, and I thought for one day out of the miserable 365 when we weren't fighting for our lives, or for the whole planet's survival, we could have one of those classic white Christmases. But St. Canard isn't supposed to get snow for the next few days, which ruined all my plans, so I built a machine to make it snow, but it had to be inside where I could control the damn environment and the living room is where everyone hangs out so perfect! Why not there? But no one wants snow, all they want is to know why and who cares? I built a machine, we have snow now, relax about it!"

Shaking his head and muttering to himself, Tony stormed out of the room, taking the elevator down to his workshop. Turning up his music once he got there, Tony bent over his newest model of the Iron Duck armor, intent on fixing a few of the bugs MORGANA had found in their last test run.

Why had he bothered? God, try to do something nice for a group of people for Christmas and suddenly it's all skepticism.

Granted, he'd been right when he'd said that none of the Duckvengers had had an idyllic childhood. Except maybe Megavolt. But he was an alien/god so that didn't count. But the not-so-great-time-growing-up thing had given Tony the idea to create a good Christmas memory for the team. Give 'em all the day to enjoy the holiday season for once in their sad lives.

It had been a rough year tracking down Drakey Barnes, after all. They deserved this.

The world wasn't under attack. No one had any plans. They could all be together, celebrating the fact that they were a cohesive team spending a major holiday with each other, but instead of being excited about snow inside their home, all they wanted to ask was why and complain that it was cold or that they couldn't use the living room now.

Christmas was stupid.

It was just marketing ploys to get people to buy things. Make you feel like less of an asshole because you got someone a pointless gift for the one day of the year where everyone pretended to be better people than they actually were.

"Sir, Captain Rogers is asking for permission to enter," MORGANA said, her voice soothing over the hard metal music.

"MORG, you know better than to tamper with my music when I'm in the zone." Having rewired the repulser, he reached for his soldering iron. "Tell Cap I'm busy."

"I have been, sir. He insists he won't leave until he has spoken to you."

"He's gonna keep waiting."

"He has already waited for half an hour."

Tony paused in his work, finally tearing his eyes away from the gauntlet to roll them heavenward. "Stubborn son of a— Fine." He set down the soldering iron. "If it'll send him away. Let him in. And kill the music."

The workshop door slid open, revealing Cap, his beak set in a hard line.

"Let's just cut to the chase here," Tony said before Cap had the chance to make him feel like even more of an asshole. "I'm sorry I insulted your friend. I'll clean up all the damn snow which I don't see why it matters to any of you. This is still my Tower last I checked, so if I decide to ruin some furniture and flooring, I can do it. I own all of it—"

"Thank you, Tony," Launchpad said, his tone sincere and his volume slightly louder than usual to be heard over Tony's babble.

"—which I think some of you forget. It's— Oh." Tony blinked. "Oh, um. You… you sort of interrupted my rant. I had more. You know, things to say."

Launchpad smirked. "Sorry. Do you want to keep going?"

"No. No, that's…." Tony ran a hand through his feathers. "And I am sorry. About insulting Drakey. I didn't…. I speak before I think sometimes."

"I hadn't noticed," Cap said, his eyebrows raising slightly, broadcasting to the world — or for those who were looking for it, like Tony — that he was being sarcastic.

"Yes, haha, Tony's an idiot." He sighed. "Look, I'll call someone to clean up the mess upstairs. MORG, is there—"

"You'll need to tear Bud away first. He and Megavolt are making snow angels."

"They're… what?"

Launchpad nodded. "Drakey and Jack started building a snowman. They think they can build one better than Dr. Banner."

"Fools." Tony shook his head. "Reggie's got science on his side."

Launchpad grinned before sobering. "We do appreciate the gesture. I guess we're all still learning to trust each other."

"Not like building snowmen and making snow angels are gonna help with that."

"It's not gonna hurt, either." Launchpad reached out and clapped Tony on the shoulder. "You did well, Tony. We needed some team building."

Not knowing what to say — cause what do you say to your childhood hero come to life when he compliments you? — Tony did what he did best.

Deflected.

Grinning up at Cap, he said, "Bet I'm gonna kick your ass in a snowball fight."

Launchpad walked back toward the elevator, shaking his head with a smile on his beak. "In your dreams."

Here's the breakdown of the characters in the Duckvengers Universe:

• Negaduck — Iron Man (Iron Duck / Tony Mallard)

• Launchpad — Captain America (Captain St. Canard / Launchpad Rogers)

• Bushroot — The Hulk (Bushroot / Dr. Reginald Banner)

• Megavolt — Thor (Megavolt Odinson)

• Quackerjack — Black Widow (Black Jack / Jack Romanov)

• Liquidator — Hawkeye (Liquidator / Bud Barton)

• Morgana — JARVIS

• Darkwing — The Winter Soldier (Drake "Drakey" Barnes)