*digs self out of a mountain of obligations and responsibilities* Sorry I haven't been around for a while. The schedule at work is changing and, sadly, that means my writing time is getting sliced. Projects are being put on hold as I try and sort out my everyday to-do lists. I do apologize to all who have made requests. As soon as they are ready, I will not hesitate to post them. Until then, when the opportunity presents itself, I will upload old stories I have lying around on the hard drive. So enjoy this wintry little one-shot and stay warm! :)
*Boomthumpthump*
Tony woke with a start. Someone was beating on his door. Poor door. It wasn't made to withstand such abuse.
"Tony! Get up!"
Grumbling under his breath, Tony tugged the blankets higher until they covered his head. Still able to hear the excited voice of none other than Captain Spangle-Pants himself, Tony stuffed his pillow over his ears. He'd watched enough cartoons to know that was the proper way to shut out unwanted noised. Of course, on T.V., the characters usually threaded the puffy whiteness in one ear and out the other but his genius brain prevented him from accomplishing that fantastic feat. So he settled for pressing it down over his head for all he was worth. For once, watching hours of old cartoon reruns was coming in handy-the noise really was muffled.
A sudden influx of cooler air burst over him as his cotton comforter was ripped off him. In the same instant, the pillow got whipped out of his hand.
"Come on, Stark, let's get going! We've got no time to waste!"
"Leave me alone, Mr. Perky. You know I don't get up before noon," Tony grumbled, squinting his eyes against the bright light and fumbling for his stolen bedding.
Surprise rushed over him when his own pillow slammed into his head. Eyes widened by shock, he looked up into the flushed face of Captain America.
"I let you sleep in plenty. Now it's time to get up. I've already gotten the others out of bed. So once you've changed, come down to the lobby," Steve brightly ordered.
Tony could have sworn Steve seemed exceptionally chipper this morning. He could only watch as the super soldier made a rapid exit from the room.
"Oh! And make sure to wear something warm!" Steve tossed over his shoulder.
Tony blinked. Then he blinked again. Either he was still dreaming or something extraordinary had happened, like a whole bucket of gleefulness had been dumped over the normally solemn captain's head. Tony would have liked to know who was responsible for that. Once, with Clint's help, Tony had managed to pull off the paint-over-the-door trick. Steve had not been pleased with his new look. Apparently he thought pink hair somehow reduced his manly appearance. He was right, but that didn't make it any less funny. Tony still had the pictures. (Safely locked away somewhere secret of course-he did value his life.)
But honestly, what had happened to the Tony-ticks-me-off-but-I'll-leave-him-to-his-own-devices Steve? Sure, the guy got up at five in the morning but he didn't expect everyone else to as well. Especially Tony. It was a well known fact that the billionaire never rose until after lunch. So why had Steve burst into his room, whacked him with a pillow and told him to hurry up? There was only one way to find out.
Muttering under his breath the entire time about captains and their cursed morning-people personalities, he changed out of his pajamas, making sure to select a tee shirt, just to spite Steve. He'd obey the soldier out in the field but this was his own tower for pity's sake! He'd make his own rules. Tripping over the discarded pillow, he stumbled and leveled it with a glare as compensation for the inconvenience.
A yawn split his mouth as he shuffled into the hallway and towards the elevator. He slapped lazily at the control panel. Once the doors opened, he stepped inside. Stifling another yawn, he waited for the metal box to descend, thinking about how Steve had better have a big cup of coffee ready and waiting or he was going to be faced with one unpleasant, sleep-deprived, ticked off genius. The doors opened after a minute or two and Tony rubbed his eyes at the sight before him. He must be dreaming.
There was no way a team of fully grown, mature, earth-saving superheroes was standing in the middle of his lobby dressed in snow gear like a bunch of grade school kids. He shut his eyes but when he opened them, they were still there, in all their cold weather glory. Boots, gloves, coats, scarves, earmuffs-the whole shebang.
He thought about sending the elevator back up with him inside. The scene in front of him did not look like something he wanted to be a part of. He couldn't remember the last time he had worn a scarf, much less earmuffs. His finger inched towards the inviting button but it never reached its destination.
"Oh good, you're here!" Steve was on him in an instant and tugged him towards the little knot of adults gathered in the middle of the room. "I thought I told you to dress warmly."
Tony pulled out of his light grip. "Yeah, sure. Whatever, mom." He realized he sounded like a child.
Apparently most of the others did too, if their synchronized eye-roll was anything to judge by. Thor and Steve were the only ones who didn't roll their eyes. Thor, because he didn't understand the subtle insult and Steve, who was too busy unzipping his jacket and handing it to Tony to notice. Tony glanced at it skeptically.
"What's that for?" he questioned.
"You're going to need it," Steve answered, eyes glittering. "Because we," he turned to face his team, "are going to have a snowball fight!"
Five pairs of eyebrows shot up.
"What is this conflict you speak of?" Thor inquired.
"I'm really not good in competitive situations," Bruce objected.
"Should I get a handicap, seeing as how I'm the world's greatest marksman?" Clint queried.
"Are you serious?" Natasha sputtered.
Since Natasha took the question right out of his mouth, Tony settled for a different one. "Won't you need your coat?" Visions of a hyperventilating captain, suffering from flashbacks, raced through his mind and he knew none of them were equipped to deal with that.
Steve merely looked around the circle of curious and protesting Avengers, and smiled. Looking each of them in the eye when he spoke to them, he answered all of their questions. "A snowball fight is a game where the players shape the snow into balls and try to hit each other with them. It's going to be strictly for fun-no pressure, no stress. Thor can be on your team, Barton, since he'll be new to the game, it will all even out. Yes, I really do want us to go out there, in the street, and have the best snowball fight ever! And no, I don't need this." He ended by shoving the leather jacket at Tony.
Natasha and Bruce exchanged alarmed looks with Tony. He wasn't the only one thinking about the situation they'd find themselves in if Steve had a breakdown.
"I can go back upstairs and get my own," Tony offered.
"No time." Steve shook his head and thrust the jacket closer. "I just want to get out there and start."
"You need it more than I do," Tony tried.
"I'll be fine. I promise." Steve handed the coat to Tony, face sincere.
With a glance at the other worried members of the team, Tony tentatively took the proffered garment. He was surprised when he nearly landed in a heap on the floor.
"Jeez! This thing weighs a million pounds," he complained.
Steve shrugged and tossed his gloves at him. "At least it's warm."
Wriggling his fingers into position, Tony fell in line as the Avengers trotted after their leader into the snowy morning. The temperature drop was acute, making Tony exhale in a rush. His breath misted in front of him, spinning with the snowflakes that drifted lazily through the air.
"Okay, I want three teams of two," Steve commanded.
Tony took a moment to gaze at his surroundings. Golden sunlight peeked out between buildings, catching snowflakes in its rays. The small white dots reflected the light, transforming the city into a shimmering landscape of sparkle and white. Cars rolled over the street, packing the snow and tattooing it with tire marks. People, with bags suspended from their arms, hurried to and fro on the sidewalks.
Of course Steve wouldn't care that the whole population of New York City would see them acting like children. It wasn't like they had a reputation to protect or anything. Naturally, they could start an impromptu snowball fight in a crowded city block. Turning his eyes back to Steve, Tony found he didn't have the heart to tell him what a bad idea this was. Giving himself a mental head shake, Tony figured he must be getting soft in his old age because he couldn't find it within himself to say anything that would wipe the smile from Steve's face. Because it was a real smile. An honest-to-goodness smile. Not a practiced, rehearsed, camera-ready grin. Not a suave smirk or a nervous tick. It was simply an expression of true happiness. Tony didn't know why, but for some reason, Steve found this fun. And if it made the soldier forget his troubles for even a few minutes, Tony was willing to risk frostbite and embarrassing tabloid photos.
"As I said, Barton, you've got Thor. Romanoff, you take Banner. And Stark's with me," Steve directed them, gesturing with his hand and separating them into groups. With a mischievous glance at Tony, he added, "that way, all us SHIELD agents have a handicap."
Opening his mouth to protest, Tony never got the words out.
"One, two, three, go!" Clint shouted, tossing a fistful of snow directly into Tony's face.
Spluttering, Tony took a step back. The snow nipped at his cheeks, melting into his skin. Steve held up a hand.
"Wait, we need to establish the rules. First, no head shots." He sent a reproachful eyebrow in Clint's direction.
The archer merely shrugged.
"Second, we stay on this block," Steve continued. "Third-"
"Hold on," Tony interrupted. "Not so many. I don't have a very good memory and I don't do well with rules so let's keep 'em short. Okay?" Tony scrubbed at his stinging cheeks with gloved fingers.
"There could be no rules at all," Clint pointed out.
Tony took one look at the way Natasha lit up at the suggestion, and decided it would be in his best interest to let Steve set up boundaries. It would be a bad thing if the billionaire ended up in a hospital while Pepper was in Chicago. She always managed to find out when he'd been in trouble and a ticked off Pepper was not something Tony wanted to handle. That would be a really fast way to ruin the holidays.
Looking properly cowed, Tony gestured for Steve to continue.
"Third, five hits and you're out," Steve finished. "And watch out for civilians!"
Surveying the crowded sidewalks, Tony sighed. Yeah, no problem. There definitely wouldn't be any casualties to the innocent bystanders caught in the middle of a wintry firefight between a bunch of immature, superhuman warriors.
"Okay. Now I can say one, two, three, go!" Cling shouted, flinging snow at Tony.
Tony, who was not to be fooled by the same trick twice, ducked. "How come you keep coming after me?" he complained.
"Easy target," Clint quipped, barely dodging the projectile Steve threw his way.
"Is this satisfactorily circular?" Thor held out his palm, in which a lump of snow resided.
"Yeah, good, whatever. Just throw it!" Clint urged, slipping between Thor's legs in search of a more defensible position from which to shoot.
A hand grabbed Bruce's scarf and yanked him behind a taxi parked nearby.
"Alright, Banner. This is it. We split-I go left, you hang right. On my twelve, we dive center and double back. In a classic counter and feint, you move out and slam into the middle of their gathered power core," Natasha spouted off her plan, oblivious to the fact that Bruce was blinking at her with no comprehension of what she was attempting to communicate to him. "That ought to serve to knock out their objective power source. With that temporarily out of commission, I swoop in and summarily outmaneuver their auxiliary flank. In the ensuing confusion, it'll be child's play to wipe out the remnants of the opposition." She cackled as visions of victory danced in her head. "To make things easier and less cumbersome for quick communication, let's refer to Steve as Eagle One. Clint is, obviously, The Hawk. Thor's Cuckoo and Tony's Peacock. If one of us gets in trouble, the code is 'the egg is cracked'. If we get someone eliminated, the phrase is 'the bird is on the wing'. In case one of us needs backup, we should whistle like a nightingale. Got it? Good. Our first objective is separating the fowl from their nests."
Bruce wondered where Natasha's fascination with birds came from.
"We obtain that objective by following the plan exactly as I have laid it out. Are we clear?" She stared intently at him, expecting an answer.
Raising mitten-clad hands, Bruce shook his head. "I have absolutely no idea what any of that meant."
Natasha opened her mouth, outrage on her features. A cold shower of white flakes spilled over her back, effectively cutting short any response she was going to make. As the snow melted in her hair, she nearly trembled with anger.
"You are so dead!" she shrieked, whirling around to search for her attacker.
The only person in sight was Thor. And she doubted he could have been the one to get the drop on her. He seemed too preoccupied with attempting to mold handfuls of snow into spheres. Narrowing her eyes, Natasha crouched down and scanned the area in all directions. Pedestrians, taxis and snowflakes filled her line of vision. A ball of snow plopped into the ground beside her, having come from the opposite direction of the first shot. In one smooth motion, Natasha made a projectile of her own, rolled to the left and pitched it as hard as she could.
"Ow!" Tony yelped, rubbing the spot on his shoulder where she had hit him. "That's not fair. I didn't even hit you!"
"But you tried," Natasha returned menacingly, advancing on him.
He swallowed and started backing away. "Remember what Cap said. You're not allowed to kill me," he nervously reminded.
A clump of slush splashed down the back of Natasha's neck. "Actually, I don't think that was one of the rules," Clint's voice accompanied the drenching.
"Gotcha!" Whirling, Natasha launched her own snowball at the archer, who was perched on top of a streetlamp.
Shielding his eyes with his hand, Tony gaped at the marksman. "How in the world did you get up there?"
"Very carefully," Clint grunted, dodging the missiles Natasha was pelting him with.
Bruce slipped around the others and came up beside Thor. "You can make them bigger than that," he informed the demigod, after staring at the pitiful snowballs that looked like ping-pong balls.
"Oh. I can?" Thor questioned hopefully.
Bruce nodded. Thor brightened, bent and scooped up an entire armful of snow, which he promptly deposited on top of the well-meaning scientist.
"Was that big enough?" Thor inquired, blinking expectantly at the buried doctor.
After a moment of bland stillness, Bruce dug himself out of the snow mound. "I'm going to say that counts as five shots and declare myself out." He brushed the white powder from his clothes and headed in the direction of the Tower.
"Come on, Banner. You can't quit now!" Natasha complained, attacking Clint with a snowball in each of her hands.
"Consider yourself un-handicapped," Bruce told her, never looking back, merely waving a hand in the air vaguely.
"Did I win?" Thor queried, spreading his arms to encompass the site of his supposed victory.
Three snowballs smacked into his exposed chest simultaneously. His expression turned to one of confusion.
"Does this mean the battle yet rages on?" He glanced around at Tony and Natasha, his attackers.
They each threw another round.
"Not for you," Natasha gloated as Thor slunk away, dejected.
Clint seized the opportunity created by the elimination of his partner by sliding down the pole and sprinting to the nearest cover. By the time Natasha turned around, he had already disappeared.
"Where did you go, Hawk?" Natasha muttered, slinking across the sidewalk.
"Where did Steve go?" Tony inquired, glancing up and down the street. "So much for being a team," he muttered moodily.
"Maybe he decided to ditch the dead weight," Clint's voice drifted on the light breeze.
Natasha threw in the direction she thought it was coming from.
"Missed me!" he taunted, darting from one car to the next. "Or maybe," a snowball came flying over the hood of the car he was hiding behind. "Cap's just waiting us out."
"Waiting us out?" Tony repeated.
Natasha paused. "He's waiting until we pick each other off and then automatically he'll win."
"That's not fair!" Tony protested.
"Dude, he's on your team," Clint pointed out.
"I don't think he's hiding." Natasha shook her head. "He never runs from a fight. Not to mention, this was his idea."
"You mean his prank," Clint corrected, rounding the car and leaning against the trunk.
Tony raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Captain America playing a prank? I don't think that's possible because, in order to play a prank, you have to have a sense of humor. That guy definitely doesn't."
"So how would you explain it?" Clint demanded.
"There's only one way to find out what's really going on," Natasha declared, marching down the block.
With a shrug, Clint followed her. Not seeing any other option, Tony brought up the rear. A patch of exposed ice caught him unaware and he fell in a boneless heap.
"Hurry up, slow poke." Clint turned to watch Tony's struggling on the slippery ground. Walking backwards, he laughed and shook his head as the scientist's legs repeatedly slid out from under him. "Are you having problems, Stark? If you need a hand, I'm not going to be the one to-ooph." Clint's taunt was cut short when he collided with something solid. "What the-?" He spun around to find out he had crashed into Natasha's back. "Nat, what are you doing?" he impatiently questioned, circling around to her front.
Mutely, she raised a finger to point ahead. Clint followed her direction and his jaw dropped.
"What are we all staring at?" Tony inquired as he came to join them, wincing as each fresh bruise made its presence known.
"We found Cap," Clint informed him, his voice colored with surprise.
"Oh really? What's he doing?" Tony queried disinterestedly, brushing the snow from his pants.
"The usual," Natasha answered.
"Which would be?" Tony knocked his gloves together to get rid of the excess snow which had accumulated on them.
"Saving the world by kicking alien butt," Clint summarized.
Tony's head jerked up. "What?"
"See for yourself," Natasha invited, gesturing to the street view before them.
As soon as he did, Tony wasn't quite sure what to make of what he saw. In the midst of a picture perfect winter scene, Steve was surrounded by row upon row of purple squid-like extraterrestrials. With no shield, no gun and no backup, Steve was improvising. A well-aimed snowball brought one to its knees. It crashed to the asphalt and didn't rise. Lashing out with a foot, Steve knocked down an entire battalion of creatures. They fell like dominoes. He punched one, twisted, and threw another over his shoulder.
"Where did all of these things come from?" Tony questioned, glancing around at the number of unconscious aliens scattered around the area.
"I don't know," Clint shrugged.
"Shouldn't we help him?" Tony suggested.
Throw with expert precision, a snowball toppled three of the aliens at once.
"I think he has it under control," Natasha commented.
Steve leaped over a taxi, ducked beneath a sidewalk cafe table and rolled to a crouch, grabbing fistfuls of snow as he went. The projectiles sang as they were released from his grip. Sailing straight and true, they barreled into the ranks of invaders. Clint whistled in awe as the aliens dropped to the ground.
"Yeah, I guess he does," Tony agreed, grimacing in commiseration with the toppling army. A frozen sidewalk was not the most comfortable place to fall.
One of the aliens separated from the rest. Taller and darker than the others, it stomped onto the hood of a nearby vehicle. With multiple tentacles waving in the air, it released a ferocious bellow. Flying through the air, a handful of slush caught it in the face and it burbled before it collapsed. At the sight of their fallen leader, the other extraterrestrials shrieked and the next moment, a shaft of light shot down from the sky and sucked up the last few who were still standing. Casually tossing another snowball up and down in his palm, Steve turned to his friends. Clint nodded approvingly, while Natasha pulled out her cell phone and informed SHIELD that a clean-up crew was required at their location.
With a wide grin on his face, Tony gave Steve two thumbs-up. "I am so glad you're on my team."
"That's right. We were in the middle of a game," Steve smirked and rounded on Clint.
"How about we declare Team Cap the winner and forget the whole 'eliminate the others' part," Clint suggested, chuckling nervously as he glanced around at the stacks of felled aliens.
"Fine by me." Steve shrugged and let his final snowball drop.
"Team Cap? Really?" Tony frowned and put his hands on his hips. "I think it should be Team Tony. I was the one doing all the work, what with taking down Thor and all."
"Hey, I helped you with Thor," Natasha interrupted, covering the mouth piece of her cell.
"And Steve just saved New York. Again," Clint pointed out. "So there's really no contest."
"I'm just saying there are better names," Tony defended.
"Whatever." Clint rolled his eyes.
"Come on, let's go get some hot chocolate," Steve suggested brightly, heading back toward the Tower. "Tomorrow, we'll build a snowman!"