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bookishwenchNew York was never an idyllic paradise, but on this particular winter night, the snow was piled high in Central Park, and a light dusting of snowflakes studded the air, sparkling like diamonds. A particularly observant viewer might have noticed a group of ten people walking together, their breath coming out in steamy puffs as they laughed, chatted, and generally appeared to be the usual December merrymakers visiting the park to see the sights. Granted, in what was nearly the middle of the night, that wasn’t a safe thing for most people to do, and several of them gave off the feeling that they were from out of town. A couple of them were from even further than that. But, at least at first glance, no one would have suspected that beneath the bundled-up layers of winter clothing were the Avengers (and Loki, for whatever reason, dragging his feet like a petulant teenager).
“Okay, so, does this look like a decent spot?” Tony said, glancing right and left at an open area not too far off the sidewalk and lit by a couple streetlights. “No major rocks, plenty of the fluffy white stuff?”
“Fine by me,” Steve said. “So, what are we doing? One big snowman, a bunch of individual ones, or just skip to the inevitable moment when we began pelting each other with snowballs?”
Bruce gave an appraising look at the snow, pulling off his mittens to sift it through his fingers, and nodded.
“It’s good packing snow,” he said. “What about we split into pairs and see who builds the best snowman?”
“Competition?” Tony said, brightening. “Okay, now this could get interesting. The bag of snowman stuff is right here in the middle. Nobody hog everything, and we should have this done in, what, thirty minutes?”
“Sounds good,” Natasha said as Tony set a timer on his watch.
“Why don’t we break things up a little from the usual, though?” Pepper said. “Steve, you’re with me.”
“I call Thor,” Tony said quickly.
“Bucky,” Loki said, almost sounding more like an order, but the other man shrugged and went with him.
“I’ll take Peter,” Natasha said, getting a pleased smile in return.
“Well, Bruce, looks like we’re stuck with each other,” Clint said, then added in a loud whisper, “What no one knows is I’m the champion snowman maker in the whole county back home.”
“Yes, well, when the residents in the vicinity are vastly outnumbered by cows, one wonders how stiff the competition was,” Loki said dismissively.
Clint scowled at him and squared his shoulders.
“We’re winning this,” Tony said to Thor. “I can smell it.”
“I have never made a snowman before,” Thor warned him. “The climate of Asgard is not appropriate for it.”
“Don’t worry, Manwich,” Tony said, grabbing some coal from the bag. “We’ve got this.”
Natasha rolled her eyes and jerked her head to one side, getting Peter to follow her to another spot in the clearing where they began talking in voices so low that no one else could hear them. The others took a leaf out of their playbook and scattered to various locations so that no one could see what they were doing.
The minutes ticked by to the sound of rolling snowballs, pained grunts, laughter, and one very high-pitched scream when Tony and Thor’s snowman’s head fell off and rolled away into the trees. Exactly which of them had screamed they both refused to reveal.
When Tony’s watch eventually rang, everyone gathered together again to peruse the results.
“Okay, show ‘em off,” Tony said, grinning broadly. He whispered quietly to Thor, “We are so winning.”
“Indeed, friend Tony, I believe we have a good chance,” Thor said.
“So, Brucey Bear, Robin Hood?” Tony asked.
“Uh,” Bruce said, grimacing, “we had a little problem.”
Clint rolled his eyes as if that were the understatement of the year and led the way to the spot they had used. When they got there, everyone stopped and looked around.
“Where?” Steve asked.
“There,” Clint sighed, pointing to the ground.
Two regular-sized snowballs were stacked on top of each other. A rock was used as an eye, but the other one had fallen out and was laying on the ground, staring up at itself accusingly. A pair of bare twigs stuck out at odd angles for arms.
“This?” Tony asked. “This is what a genius and a guy with really good aim were able to come up with over half an hour?”
“No,” Bruce said. “This is what we came up with in two minutes. We had another snowman built, but—”
“But I accidentally knocked it over,” Clint finished, pointing to a large pile of snow with a single carrot sticking out of it like a call for help. “I thought I heard something over in the trees and spun around to check it out, slid on the ice, and kapow, I killed Frosty with friend fire.”
Natasha had taken out her phone and silently took multiple pictures of the teeny snowman.
“You’re sending those to my wife, aren’t you?” Clint said, his shoulder sagging.
“Of course.”
“Uh-huh,” Tony said. “Okay, I’m going to pretend this simply did not happen and move on. Pep? Steve? Whatchagot?”
Just on the other side of a large pine tree, the two of them had built a very respectable snowman, or actually, snowwoman. What they were looking at was a perfect recreation of the Statue of Liberty in snow. At about eight feet tall, including the torch held aloft, it was remarkably impressive.
“Now this is more like it,” Tony said, grinning. I take it Steve did the heavy lifting?”
“Well, he is the artist,” Pepper said, smiling. “I did come up with the icicle crown, though.”
Loki rolled his eyes but said nothing.
“Okay, I know it’s going to be hard to decide if this one beats the puny snow-gnome, but I think it might just edge it out,” Tony said. “Next?”
“Ours,” Peter said, leading everyone over to a thickly clustered clump of trees. Standing in the middle of it was a snowman that had to be at least fifteen feet tall, built out of ten snowballs stacked on top of each other. A close observation showed that it stood in front of a backdrop of spiderwebs that had been woven in intricate patterns and dusted with snow. Eight large branches, four on each side, were attached as arms, and a cluster of coal briquettes formed the eyes.
“A snowspider?” Pepper said, looking a little ill. “How… jolly?”
“Like you couldn’t see that coming,” Natasha said, putting an arm around Peter, who blushed. “Peter climbed the trees to drop the highest snowballs on top and spun the web. I handled the planning and decorating. Living in Russia, you learn how to handle snow.”
“It’s incredible,” Bruce said, staring at it. “I wouldn’t think something this big could stand.”
“Very nice, kid,” Tony said, punching Peter in the arm. “Okay, so Thor and I are next door over here.”
Tony led the way with Thor right behind him, beaming proudly. The group clustered around what appeared to be a snow Viking. It was nearly as big as Thor, and it wore a helmet crowned with two ice cream cones and had a beard made of moss.
“It looks rather like Volstagg,” Loki said, tipping his head to one side as he inspected it.
“Yes,” Thor said, nodding, “I think it is a good likeness.”
“So how did the head roll off before?” Natasha asked.
“Those ice cream cones were a little hard to place,” Tony said. “We found a vendor who was still open and bought a couple, then had to go back and get a couple more when I tried to punch them into the snow and instead punched the poor guy’s lights out instead.”
“I believe we have created a strong showing,” Thor said, patting the snowman, who immediately fell over. “Oh. That was unintentional. And unfortunate.”
Tony emitted a long-suffering sigh, then said, “Okay, who do we have left?”
“The winners, obviously,” Loki said.
Bucky shrugged but followed along. Not too far away, a single snowman stood in the middle of a large, open field of snow. It looked completely ordinary: three balls, two sticks for arms, a carrot for a nose, and coal for a mouth and eyes. An old scarf fluttered around its neck.
“It’s,” Tony said, stopping and searching for a word, “nice, I guess? Kind of ordinary, though.”
“Is it?” Loki said, grinning broadly. “Well, perhaps you’d like to see the rest of it?”
As the Avengers watched, the snowman suddenly multiplied, becoming five, ten, twenty, fifty, two hundred snowmen dotting the field, all identical. Then, with a crackling of green light between his palms, Loki double over and shot a wave of magic over the field. Immediately, the snow erupted, spouting skyward, taking the form of buildings, domes, towers, a long bridge, and a spectacular palace, all made of dazzling ice.
“Welcome to Asgard,” Loki said, bowing. “However, as humans are not permitted here by the order of Odin, you are now under attack!”
The snowmen immediately bent down and started rolling snowballs, running forward and pelting the Avengers with them.
“Snowball fight!” Bucky yelled, grabbing snow and packing it to take out the snowman at the lead of the brigade.
What followed was an epic battle of complete silliness. Since the snowmen were illusions, they didn’t take damage well and would disappear into a cloud of snow with a simple touch. Still, there were hundreds of them. Clint, his aim precise as ever, launched himself into a tree and started throwing snowballs with shocking levels of accuracy. Peter hit them with webs, Thor called Mjolnir to him and sent it smashing out into the crowd and boomeranging back to him, and even Pepper managed to take out three or four with one well-placed throw. Steve, who had left his shield at home, just ran straight forward, plowing through the snowmen and taking direct hits all the way. Even Loki and Bucky fought against their own creations, giddily scooping snow, packing it, and tossing it so that it would ricochet and hit three or four of them at once. Bruce just stood on the sidelines, laughing hysterically as the snowmen ran riot over the field, into the woods, and all the way to the sidewalk, where they disappeared in a puff of frost.
“Okay,” Tony said, flopping down on a park bench, “that was invigorating. And tiring. Any more of those things and I was calling for my suit.”
“So, who wins?” Loki said, folding his arms in satisfaction as the icy Asgard behind him dissolved.
“Well, those things knocked over our Viking, the spider snowman, and the Statue of Liberty before all of them disappeared,” Tony said, “and there’s none of yours left. Everybody’s got destroyed, so I guess no one wins.”
“Wait,” Bruce said, pointing at something and grinning, “that’s not quite true.”
There, off to the side, stood the tiny snowman Clint and Bruce had built, the two snowballs still stacked atop each other, arms akimbo, its one eye glinting in the moonlight.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Bucky said, staring at it.
“Afraid not,” Tony said, barely stifling a laugh. “Bruce, Clint, you guys are the official winners by default.”
The pair of them whooped wildly in celebration while Loki put his forehead in his hands and looked like he might scream.
“Brother,” Thor said, slapping him on the back, “it was a fine illusion, and a wonderful time. Is that not prize enough?”
“No!” he said firmly, collapsing down into the snow and throwing a fistful of it at his brother.
“How about if we get a pizza?” Thor coaxed. “My treat?”
Loki looked at him suspiciously, then said, “With extra cheese?”
“Is there any other kind?” Thor said.
“Very well,” Loki said, standing up with dignity. “I accept.”
“Hey, everybody! Thor’s springing for pizza!” Tony yelled to general cheering.
Thor shrugged and said, “Why not? A battle won should be celebrated.”
And that’s how the Avengers (and Loki, for some odd reason) wound up in an all-night pizzeria, demolishing far too many slices given their already stuffed bellies, and laughing far into the early morning hours.
“Okay, so, does this look like a decent spot?” Tony said, glancing right and left at an open area not too far off the sidewalk and lit by a couple streetlights. “No major rocks, plenty of the fluffy white stuff?”
“Fine by me,” Steve said. “So, what are we doing? One big snowman, a bunch of individual ones, or just skip to the inevitable moment when we began pelting each other with snowballs?”
Bruce gave an appraising look at the snow, pulling off his mittens to sift it through his fingers, and nodded.
“It’s good packing snow,” he said. “What about we split into pairs and see who builds the best snowman?”
“Competition?” Tony said, brightening. “Okay, now this could get interesting. The bag of snowman stuff is right here in the middle. Nobody hog everything, and we should have this done in, what, thirty minutes?”
“Sounds good,” Natasha said as Tony set a timer on his watch.
“Why don’t we break things up a little from the usual, though?” Pepper said. “Steve, you’re with me.”
“I call Thor,” Tony said quickly.
“Bucky,” Loki said, almost sounding more like an order, but the other man shrugged and went with him.
“I’ll take Peter,” Natasha said, getting a pleased smile in return.
“Well, Bruce, looks like we’re stuck with each other,” Clint said, then added in a loud whisper, “What no one knows is I’m the champion snowman maker in the whole county back home.”
“Yes, well, when the residents in the vicinity are vastly outnumbered by cows, one wonders how stiff the competition was,” Loki said dismissively.
Clint scowled at him and squared his shoulders.
“We’re winning this,” Tony said to Thor. “I can smell it.”
“I have never made a snowman before,” Thor warned him. “The climate of Asgard is not appropriate for it.”
“Don’t worry, Manwich,” Tony said, grabbing some coal from the bag. “We’ve got this.”
Natasha rolled her eyes and jerked her head to one side, getting Peter to follow her to another spot in the clearing where they began talking in voices so low that no one else could hear them. The others took a leaf out of their playbook and scattered to various locations so that no one could see what they were doing.
The minutes ticked by to the sound of rolling snowballs, pained grunts, laughter, and one very high-pitched scream when Tony and Thor’s snowman’s head fell off and rolled away into the trees. Exactly which of them had screamed they both refused to reveal.
When Tony’s watch eventually rang, everyone gathered together again to peruse the results.
“Okay, show ‘em off,” Tony said, grinning broadly. He whispered quietly to Thor, “We are so winning.”
“Indeed, friend Tony, I believe we have a good chance,” Thor said.
“So, Brucey Bear, Robin Hood?” Tony asked.
“Uh,” Bruce said, grimacing, “we had a little problem.”
Clint rolled his eyes as if that were the understatement of the year and led the way to the spot they had used. When they got there, everyone stopped and looked around.
“Where?” Steve asked.
“There,” Clint sighed, pointing to the ground.
Two regular-sized snowballs were stacked on top of each other. A rock was used as an eye, but the other one had fallen out and was laying on the ground, staring up at itself accusingly. A pair of bare twigs stuck out at odd angles for arms.
“This?” Tony asked. “This is what a genius and a guy with really good aim were able to come up with over half an hour?”
“No,” Bruce said. “This is what we came up with in two minutes. We had another snowman built, but—”
“But I accidentally knocked it over,” Clint finished, pointing to a large pile of snow with a single carrot sticking out of it like a call for help. “I thought I heard something over in the trees and spun around to check it out, slid on the ice, and kapow, I killed Frosty with friend fire.”
Natasha had taken out her phone and silently took multiple pictures of the teeny snowman.
“You’re sending those to my wife, aren’t you?” Clint said, his shoulder sagging.
“Of course.”
“Uh-huh,” Tony said. “Okay, I’m going to pretend this simply did not happen and move on. Pep? Steve? Whatchagot?”
Just on the other side of a large pine tree, the two of them had built a very respectable snowman, or actually, snowwoman. What they were looking at was a perfect recreation of the Statue of Liberty in snow. At about eight feet tall, including the torch held aloft, it was remarkably impressive.
“Now this is more like it,” Tony said, grinning. I take it Steve did the heavy lifting?”
“Well, he is the artist,” Pepper said, smiling. “I did come up with the icicle crown, though.”
Loki rolled his eyes but said nothing.
“Okay, I know it’s going to be hard to decide if this one beats the puny snow-gnome, but I think it might just edge it out,” Tony said. “Next?”
“Ours,” Peter said, leading everyone over to a thickly clustered clump of trees. Standing in the middle of it was a snowman that had to be at least fifteen feet tall, built out of ten snowballs stacked on top of each other. A close observation showed that it stood in front of a backdrop of spiderwebs that had been woven in intricate patterns and dusted with snow. Eight large branches, four on each side, were attached as arms, and a cluster of coal briquettes formed the eyes.
“A snowspider?” Pepper said, looking a little ill. “How… jolly?”
“Like you couldn’t see that coming,” Natasha said, putting an arm around Peter, who blushed. “Peter climbed the trees to drop the highest snowballs on top and spun the web. I handled the planning and decorating. Living in Russia, you learn how to handle snow.”
“It’s incredible,” Bruce said, staring at it. “I wouldn’t think something this big could stand.”
“Very nice, kid,” Tony said, punching Peter in the arm. “Okay, so Thor and I are next door over here.”
Tony led the way with Thor right behind him, beaming proudly. The group clustered around what appeared to be a snow Viking. It was nearly as big as Thor, and it wore a helmet crowned with two ice cream cones and had a beard made of moss.
“It looks rather like Volstagg,” Loki said, tipping his head to one side as he inspected it.
“Yes,” Thor said, nodding, “I think it is a good likeness.”
“So how did the head roll off before?” Natasha asked.
“Those ice cream cones were a little hard to place,” Tony said. “We found a vendor who was still open and bought a couple, then had to go back and get a couple more when I tried to punch them into the snow and instead punched the poor guy’s lights out instead.”
“I believe we have created a strong showing,” Thor said, patting the snowman, who immediately fell over. “Oh. That was unintentional. And unfortunate.”
Tony emitted a long-suffering sigh, then said, “Okay, who do we have left?”
“The winners, obviously,” Loki said.
Bucky shrugged but followed along. Not too far away, a single snowman stood in the middle of a large, open field of snow. It looked completely ordinary: three balls, two sticks for arms, a carrot for a nose, and coal for a mouth and eyes. An old scarf fluttered around its neck.
“It’s,” Tony said, stopping and searching for a word, “nice, I guess? Kind of ordinary, though.”
“Is it?” Loki said, grinning broadly. “Well, perhaps you’d like to see the rest of it?”
As the Avengers watched, the snowman suddenly multiplied, becoming five, ten, twenty, fifty, two hundred snowmen dotting the field, all identical. Then, with a crackling of green light between his palms, Loki double over and shot a wave of magic over the field. Immediately, the snow erupted, spouting skyward, taking the form of buildings, domes, towers, a long bridge, and a spectacular palace, all made of dazzling ice.
“Welcome to Asgard,” Loki said, bowing. “However, as humans are not permitted here by the order of Odin, you are now under attack!”
The snowmen immediately bent down and started rolling snowballs, running forward and pelting the Avengers with them.
“Snowball fight!” Bucky yelled, grabbing snow and packing it to take out the snowman at the lead of the brigade.
What followed was an epic battle of complete silliness. Since the snowmen were illusions, they didn’t take damage well and would disappear into a cloud of snow with a simple touch. Still, there were hundreds of them. Clint, his aim precise as ever, launched himself into a tree and started throwing snowballs with shocking levels of accuracy. Peter hit them with webs, Thor called Mjolnir to him and sent it smashing out into the crowd and boomeranging back to him, and even Pepper managed to take out three or four with one well-placed throw. Steve, who had left his shield at home, just ran straight forward, plowing through the snowmen and taking direct hits all the way. Even Loki and Bucky fought against their own creations, giddily scooping snow, packing it, and tossing it so that it would ricochet and hit three or four of them at once. Bruce just stood on the sidelines, laughing hysterically as the snowmen ran riot over the field, into the woods, and all the way to the sidewalk, where they disappeared in a puff of frost.
“Okay,” Tony said, flopping down on a park bench, “that was invigorating. And tiring. Any more of those things and I was calling for my suit.”
“So, who wins?” Loki said, folding his arms in satisfaction as the icy Asgard behind him dissolved.
“Well, those things knocked over our Viking, the spider snowman, and the Statue of Liberty before all of them disappeared,” Tony said, “and there’s none of yours left. Everybody’s got destroyed, so I guess no one wins.”
“Wait,” Bruce said, pointing at something and grinning, “that’s not quite true.”
There, off to the side, stood the tiny snowman Clint and Bruce had built, the two snowballs still stacked atop each other, arms akimbo, its one eye glinting in the moonlight.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Bucky said, staring at it.
“Afraid not,” Tony said, barely stifling a laugh. “Bruce, Clint, you guys are the official winners by default.”
The pair of them whooped wildly in celebration while Loki put his forehead in his hands and looked like he might scream.
“Brother,” Thor said, slapping him on the back, “it was a fine illusion, and a wonderful time. Is that not prize enough?”
“No!” he said firmly, collapsing down into the snow and throwing a fistful of it at his brother.
“How about if we get a pizza?” Thor coaxed. “My treat?”
Loki looked at him suspiciously, then said, “With extra cheese?”
“Is there any other kind?” Thor said.
“Very well,” Loki said, standing up with dignity. “I accept.”
“Hey, everybody! Thor’s springing for pizza!” Tony yelled to general cheering.
Thor shrugged and said, “Why not? A battle won should be celebrated.”
And that’s how the Avengers (and Loki, for some odd reason) wound up in an all-night pizzeria, demolishing far too many slices given their already stuffed bellies, and laughing far into the early morning hours.
