Standard Disclaimer: No own Rise of the Guardians or Avengers, just playing in their collective universes. :)

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Jokul Frosti

Chapter Two

Every Little Parting

"So-o," Tony drawled, glass of hooch twirling in his hands as he watched the white haired figure across from him fiddle with the sleeves of the pale blue pin strip dress shirt, one of many he'd had brought up, trying to unclasp the cuffs. Jack had closed them out of curiosity and was now ready to be shut of them. Next to him, the wooden staff that looked like a Shepard's crook stood eerily still as the boy used it to hold the shirts still on hangers they he had yet to try on. He had settled on pants pretty quick -a gray pair of loose canvas covered in large pockets that could lose the pieces that started at mid calf downward thanks to zippers- and was wearing a black tee featuring AC/DC under the dress shirts he was still going through. Thor had gone up to the roof to jump back to Asgard to let people know Jack had revealed himself once more and so he could get new clothing for the Guardian that 'befit him'. Jack had shouted after the god to not forget to include a hood in his order. "You control snow."

"Yeah," Jack drug out the word like Tony had his first, "you have a light box in your chest; aren't we just special sauce."

Tony grinned. Jack tossed the pale blue and grabbed navy, looking pleased with the color and put it on. Tony watched with interest as the shoulders and sleeves immediately frosted over in swirling white patterns. Jack stood, looking down with his arms out.

"This'll do. Thor's gonna disapprove but that will be remedied soon enough with whatever gift he's bringing back." He looked at Tony, a bashful smile that Tony knew Pepper would melt over and personally made him want to treat Jack like the kid he looked. "Thanks for this. It's been ages since I had something nice."

Tony raised his glass to the boy, saluting lazily.

"No problem. I have enough money I could use it to paper a ticker tape parade, some new threads for a friend of Thor's is no big deal." He took a drink, sighing at the bite, "So how come you couldn't just have your worshipers make something godly for you?"

Jack made a little hop that somehow transported him from the ground to the top of his staff where he crouched in perfect balance on the balls of his feet. Some indefinable movement turned the perch so Jack could face Tony properly again and the gazillionaire marveled at the sheer grace of the boy. The boy who at the moment was looking a little edgy.

"I'm older than your country," Jack said dryly, "any 'worshipers' I might have had are long gone. Nope," he continued breezily, "Thor's having a ball, might as well let him get on with it."

"Uh huh." Tony wondered at that but Jack was moving, for the large windows. Tony watched with interest as the closer the boy got, the further frost spread across the glass. Which was a feat considering the panels were heated.

"Sir, the systems maintaining the median temperature of the windows is malfunctioning. Shall I run a maintenance scan?' JARVIS asked. Jack looked around in interest before curiously meeting Tony's eyes.

"You know what? Leave it. The system will reboot itself later."

"Very good sir." Then JARVIS surprised the winter entity when his attention turned to Jack. "Would Mr. Frosti like something to drink? I have a range of options for you to choose from."

Jack grinned like a loon.

"Actually, I could go for a smoothie. Do you have any of those?"

"Of course, do you have a preferred flavor?" JARVIS asked. Jack responded hopefully.

"Strawberry banana?"

"Very good Mr. Frosti."

"Ah," Jack called, one hand rising to stop someone on habit alone, "I stick to Jack Frost these days. Call me Jack."

"Of course Jack. I am JARVIS, please ask if you need anything."

"Sure." Jack affirmed to the air, eyes on Tony for an explanation. "Artificial intelligence?"

Tony could admit to being surprised that Jack knew what that was. Thor had trouble with a toaster, let alone something technological that could think for itself, and he was from a race that combined magic and technology. Looks like that was strictly a Thor thing.

"Yup."

He got up and went over to the bar where a strawberry banana smoothie was sitting pretty on the counter and offered it to Jack. Again Jack did that little hop that seemed to launch him across distances like flight in a dream, eagerly snatching up the glass and practically mauling it.

"Ease up there Frosty, it's not going anywhere."

Jack wasn't at all embarrassed and he flitted up and out of reach with his treat, smirk firmly in place as he sucked at the straw. His hair ruffled in a buffet of wind that Tony could not feel, light reflecting like silver sparks in Jack's hair with every shift of wild spikes. The boy glowed with bliss when he took another mouthful of the icy treat. Jack grinned a second later.

"So Tony," he began cheerfully, "you fond of this carpet?"

"Come again?" Paff!

..o0O0o..

Pepper scribbled something on the documents she was holding as the door to the elevator opened to the penthouse. She smiled as she lifted her head to face her insufferable but essential boyfriend and get out of the elevator but the sight before her made her stop in her tracks, almost stumbling in her Manolos.

"Tony, what," she stuttered part of the question, staring at the ice coating every surface, snow drifts nearly burying the furniture, a snow man by the bar, and at the center of it all a giant looping ice slide that Tony Stark was currently racing down, giggling like a demented ten year old, and waving his arms over his head. She yelped when he took a loop de loop, barely keeping himself from flying off, and she started to make her way closer on tiny steps to avoid slipping.

"What is going on here? Tony! What did you do?"

The gazillionaire looked over and burst into an even wider grin.

"Pepper!" He expertly rolled out of the chute he'd been cruising, dropping to the snow covered carpet and crunched over. He threw his arms around her and swung her in the air making her shriek. She clung to him when he put her down, legs scrambling as her heels tried to find purchase on the slick floor. "God, this is so much fun. You've got to try it!"

"Tony!" She resisted when he tried to drag her over to the steps leading to the top of the structure, but not exactly doing a very good job of it when she had all the traction of a pair of ice skates in her heels; she ended up sliding along behind him, pulled along by one of his hands, "where did all of this come from?" She gave the carpeting a horrified look, moaning a low, "Noooo!"

"What? What?" he asked, searching the floor where her eyes were glued for whatever had upset her. His mood was eerily chipper even when trying to be helpful (which was wrong all in itself), "what do you see?"

Pepper gave him a disbelieving look before waving her hand at the white carpet. The fluffy material was either soggy or frozen, pieces breaking off whenever Tony trod across them in his sneakered feet and there looked to be a part where a piece had been cut out in the shape of a snowflake to Pepper's undying horror.

"Do you know how much this carpet costs?" She asked him rhetorically, voice flavored with discontent, "it's going to cost a fortune to replace it! How did this happen?"

"Oh yeah," Tony seemed to suddenly realize she was asking questions, "Thor's patron god Jack Frost came by when Point Break was getting jiggy with it on the deck," here he burst in to a hysterical 'heheehehehehehehehee' that was somewhat frightening, "and Thor went to order him some clothes 'befitting one who rules a domain as vast as winter's reach' from his people, so we hung out. He had a smoothie and then he built me this awesome slide even though he shouldn't have been able to what with the heating system in the walls and floor but I guess he can do what he wants. Jack Frost, Jokul Frosti, high commander of all that is frigid and fun!" He bounced on the toes of his feet before rushing back to the slide. "He said he'd be right back!"

Pepper could only stand there and stare as her lover launched himself down the chute going 'wheee!', and asking JARVIS to make him a strawberry vodka smoothie. He pointed at her, "you're allergic! No kissing!" Her mind chugged along, sorting out the crazy that had spilled from Tony's mouth, hoping to make sense of the man's hyper good mood. As she sorted through the contents she decided there was only one thing she could really focus on to ask Tony about, unless he kept this up then she'd ask Thor whenever the Asgardian got back.

"Tony, Tony," she waved to get his attention when he slid past her. He looked over and for a wild moment she thought he had forgotten she was there, "you said Jack Frost was here? Where did he go?"

"He's combating global warming!" He crowed, breaking into more tittering, "no, no, just kidding. He said the Wind brought warning of an avalanche so he had to go and take care of it. He promised to make me an ice Iron Man to go with my snowman when he got back."

"That's..nice."

"Sir, your smoothie is ready."

"Yay!" Pause. Epiphany. "No kissing! Boo!"

..o0O0o..

Jack grinned, pinwheeling from the Wind's playful tossing. His laughter followed behind him along with a fine dust that sparkled briefly in the light. Wherever the dust landed he knew it would carry joy. Around him snow fell soft and thick over the Rocky Mountains in an early cold snap that would provide a series of snow days across three states, which he took some pride in, and sent not a fair few bears and other wildlife into hibernation.

"Where is it?" He asked his oldest friend, searching the ground with his eyes while Wind carried him high above. He listened to her relay to him coordinates in the soft and biting language of the air over hills and valleys and the wild woods, her accent lacking the taste of ocean this far inland. "Oklahoma, really? Haven't had one that far south in decades." The dark blue button up shirt spread out to make it look like he had wings. Laughing he sped up, "right, right. Let's go."

He raced across the landscape, soaring high over trees as he passed over Missouri, avoiding the air space over runways. Wind spun him around the pond of a farm where the water iced over before he could do more than skim across it. Tapping it in passing with his staff he released a burst of frost in the shapes of roses before he was gone for the farmer to puzzle over later.

Drawing upon the trailing ends of the Rocky Mountains, he rode in Wind's embrace to a peak where trees had been cut down and the land destroyed and cleared away. He frowned at the wall of snow that had built up far too quickly, and high, to stay where it was. Beneath it he could see a small town that was oblivious to the danger it was in. He dropped in the valley humans had carved out of the mountain side looking up at the drop the snow would have to come down from and wondered over the best way to handle this.

"This can't be right." He muttered to himself. "This is way too much snow for this area. This is months of snow fall in two weeks."

He lifted his staff, sweeping it left to right decisively, and a series of zigzagging walls made of ice grew across the valley wide enough apart to allow for snow to fall in easily. The further away the walls moved from the drop off the higher they rose and Jack started feeling better about the town's chances.

"Fool!" A rough voice shouted at him and something hard slammed into his back, "creature! Betrayer!"

"Hey!" Jack staggered forward before launching himself into the air, turning to look for whatever had jumped him. There on the ground was a very angry nature spirit trembling with rage. There was fury in his brown eyes, hard as stone, set in a brown face with high cheek bones and long dark hair falling wildly down past trembling shoulders, and all of it directed at Jack. "What is your problem?"

"You're trying to save those murderers!" The nature spirit ranted, "monsters! Killers! They desecrate the land and wound the mother earth and you would defend them!" An angry cutting motion with his hand shattered one of the ice walls Jack made and sent the shards rocketing toward the hovering boy.

Jack darted between projectiles, knocking some away and scowling. He mimicked the spirit's sharp hand gesture and sent the projectiles spinning around to fly back at their caster. Now it was the spirit's turn to duck which Jack capitalized on, diving with his free hand forward. Power crackled along his fingers and created a glowing ball of blue and white power against his palm that he pushed into the spirit with a roar. Ice exploded outward. The spirit yelled in pain struggling in vain to free himself from the shell he had been encased in, pressing in against him with all the chill of the arctic. The spirit cracked his eyes open to glare at Jack like he was the scourge of the earth.

"You betray your own to help them! They abandoned their beliefs, they abandoned us, and now they destroy our anchors and homes!"

"Dude, relax," Jack responded, resting his now harmless hand against the shell over the figures heart, "take a deep breath and calm down."

"I will not calm down!" the male struggled against his prison, "I will bring destruction down on their pitiful village and exact my revenge!"

"Anger issues man," Jack sighed, ruffling his hair with a hand, "they'll give you a heart attack." He frowned when the spirit started ranted in an old language, native to the land but known only to very few and popped him over the head like he would Thor to get his attention, "hey, chill out! And fork over your name, this is getting tedious."

"Nvyu Atalvyi"

"Rock Mountain," Jack had a flash of insight, "you are the Rocky Mountains." He sighed, "the mortals are cutting into you."

"Yes" Nvyu Atalvyi moaned, ceasing his struggles though he was still upset, "they are taking me apart in the name of progress and they don't care!"

"Peace, Nvyu" Jack soothed, carefully pulling the ice back to free the mountain spirit. He helped steady the man with a hand before continuing, "are you truly tied to this mountain range? It has nothing to do with belief?"

Pain flickered through those earth brown eyes.

"I feel it like skin being rubbed raw, layers coming off in pieces by the little lives I once guarded and sheltered with my trees and caves. They come with axes, and machines that dig up the ground, leveling land that formed the way it was intended, and for what? Strip malls and housing developments."

Jack watched the play of emotions on Nvyu's face before sighing. He looked across the artificial clearing.

"It's a bad job I'll give you that." He pat the spirit on the shoulder, leading him away from the view of the unwitting town below. "The world has moved on past knowledge of you but you can't move on yourself, being the mountain range." An inquisitive look, "how far from the the very edges of the Rocky's can you go? Have you tried to leave? Tried to distance yourself, y'know, for a little while?"

Nvyu looked outraged.

"Outrageous!" he nearly shouted, "that would be dereliction of sacred trust!"

"And you were ready to end lives instead of preserve them." He reminded Nvyu gently, words full of truth. Nvyu seemed to deflate at the reminder of his murderous intent. Jack sat him down on a bench made of ice, leaning forward to set his elbows on his thighs with hands dangling between his legs, "As an Immortal you stand as both home and hearth to mortals, large and small, yet you are under a tremendous amount of stress, and pain; distancing yourself now for a short time can dull the connection until the sensation becomes a small hurt."

"If they would stop,"

"They won't." Jack cut him off, "and you know it. Time marches on and the world turns, forever shifting. You need to take a breather." Here Jack grasped Nvyu's wrist in comfort. "All will not be suffering Nvyu. Life is joy, find some for yourself while this plays out."

The mountain range held his ice blue gaze for long moments. He thought about what Jack said.

"It hurts."

"As all change does." Jack agreed. He stood with a flourish of his staff. "Every time we say goodbye, and our kind say it more than most. But we would not still be here if we could not somehow endure." His pale face suddenly brightened with a sly humor. "Have you ever been to the movies Nvyu? I think you would like them."

..o0O0o..

As it turned out, Nvyu hadn't so Jack convinced the mountain range to pay a visit to the Appalachia who Jack knew liked cartoons for a movie night. Nvyu hadn't been too sure about it but Appalachia ("Call me Lachi") had been very patient when Jack had explained why he had brought Nvyu to her and gave Jack her thanks for helping her brother before the winter spirit flew back to the area Nvyu had been so upset over. Nvyu would be well looked after while Jack took care of something that worried him, and hadn't noticed before speaking with Nvyu.

He looked up at the steep wall of earth and the bare ground that used to house thick forests of pine and ash. He thought of the town directly below and frowned.

This was a bad decision on the contractor's behalf. Poor timing too, on the business' end. As far south as they were, heavy rain was still a distinct probability. In fact, he could taste it on the air; a warm front was moving in that would turn all of this snow to water, followed swiftly by the rain he worried about. The valley the town sat in was a flood point, which was bad all on its own, but even more than that..

On a mountain side, trees did more than simply provide cover for animals and create oxygen. Their roots went deep into the earth, providing stability and holding the soil in place, preventing it from shifting about like sand in a riverbed. With the trees gone, roots and all, the melting snow and rainfall would soak into the ground and turn it all into mud until so much built up that the weight of it would go with gravity's call down, down, down. Right for the little town Nvyu had been aiming for, without Nvyu having had to have done anything. Too clouded by pain to see what would happen, Jack thought sadly.

Mudslide.

Jack knew there weren't any real foolproof ways of preventing a mudslide, could really only get out of the way and wait for it to be over. But he didn't have that option, couldn't in good conscience leave the humans to panic and scramble in a wave of crushing earth; he had to try to prevent such a fate from happening.

He gripped his staff tight, blue eyes hardening to icy disks. The nimbus of cold that had formed around him when he'd felt the Asgardian's call bubbled back into existence and he felt his feet let go of the ground. He would have to funnel the mud into a controlled slide; slow it down, spread it out, avoid as much damage as possible.

"Wind!" The air curled around him, conveying her attention in the scents of pine and evergreen, "Old friend, I need your help." He turned to face the town, turning her attention as well, "drive them inside and keep them there. If they're in cars, fine, I can work with that; but make sure the streets are empty!"

The Wind tossed him once in understanding, then made for the town to carry out the Winter Spirit's wishes, always ready to help her dearest friend. He smiled briefly at her before the uptilt of his lips dropped away, ready to work.

..o0O0o..

"Friend Tony!" Came the call from the doorway, just before Thor slipped and fell in the ice that still clung stubbornly to existence, yelping as he made contact, "FortheloveoftheAllFather!"

Tony let out a cackle as he zipped by. Pepper had already left, beating a hasty retreat. Thor watched the brunette hang a right in the ice chute that sent him skidding across the frozen flooring, coming to a stop a few feet away from the Asgardian. Thor sat up, took in what he was seeing, and grinned.

"Jokul Frosti has not changed" he said, "I am glad he still carries joy in her heart. Too long has it been since he and my people spoken."

"Been a while since you've seen each other then?" Tony asked while scooting closer. Thor nodded his blond head.

"Several centuries" Thor said thoughtfully, "I believe it was the...twelfth century? Eleventh? Heimdall would know for certain."

"Damn" Tony whistled, "you suck."

"What?" The demigod asked, surprised.

"'You don't call, you don't write', for almost a thousand years?" Tony raised both eyebrows, "You drop out of sight for a few days? Fine, no big deal. A few months? If you live in another city, totally forgivable, you can even go a good decade and still be a good friend. But a near millennium? That's gonna take more than an 'I'm sorry' and a one man dancing bear."

Thor's shoulders visibly slumped as Tony's reasoning got through to him and he felt every blithe statement like an accusation. Though the All Father had told his people to cease interacting with Midgard, perhaps they should have told Jokul Frosti it was alright to call on Heimdall from time to time; Odin had never rescinded his welcome of the winter deity.

"Indeed." The demigod stared at the ice that refused to melt, feeling strongly that he would be spending a great deal of his time making this up to the winter god. Gladly. He knew full well what Jokul Frosti's life had been like before he met the Asgardians, and while the reminder only made the guilt worse, it served to reinforce his determination well. "First I will make sure he receives suitable regalia, then I will work sincerely to make up for failing him so."

"Excellent!" Tony enthused, another smoothie in hand though Thor did not see when it arrived, "Want to help me build another snowman? Jack's trip is taking longer than I thought it would and two snowmen would better flank the Ice Iron Man Jack promised me!"