Chapter Text
Loki is berating the Mole Man as only a mother can, and the befuddled victim of his/her shouting doesn't notice Nagini and Clint until they lunge for him. Loki chooses that moment to collapse from the heat, and a second later there's an explosion that nearly deafens Clint. He looks to see that Nagini has turned snake and has the Mole Man wrapped up immovably tight in her coils before he asks, "Hey, does anyone know, was that the end of the world? Because if it is... Nagini, could you turn into a beautiful woman and let me kiss you?"
Nagini hisses at him. "That's an insult."
"Sorry."
"Why does it have to be the end of the world?"
"Oh." Clint grins despite still wondering if he's going to be alive five seconds from now. Nagini turns into a woman again and leaves Mole Man gasping on the ground as she and Clint kiss.
Thor bursts into the chamber and picks up his brother, returned to his usual appearance, to hug him tightly. "LOKI!"
Loki coughs. "I need to breathe, brother."
Thor laughs and sets Loki down. "Yes, brother."
Sssteeve sticks his beak through the vent hole. "Assemble at the cross-tunnel," he says sternly, "we need Loki and Thor there at once. Ton'i and H'ward are in trouble." He pulls his beak back and there are sploshing noises as he goes back the way he came.
"H'ward?" Loki asks even as Thor is half-carrying him.
"Ton'i's father. We thought him dead."
Clint is dragging the Mole Man by his cape, and not paying much attention to the half-strangled noises that follow him, being far more interested in Nagini holding his free hand. "Dragons are hard to kill," he comments.
It's hot in the cross-chamber, fiercely hot, like standing before a forge. Ton'i is sprawled on his back on the rocky floor before a freshly cut hole in the wall, his head in Burrruch's lap, with Rhodey pressing Ton'i's chest with both forepaws. A curl of black smoke escapes from Ton'i's mouth with each press. Pepp'r has her mouth to Ton'i's, sucking the smoke into herself- her pink is darkening to gray. Ton'i's pearl is still glowing, but duller than normal. Sssteeve is perched in the hole, using his wings to reflect some of the heat back in.
Sssteeve doesn't wait for anyone to ask questions. "Ton'i needs a recharge, and H'ward needs a path of magma cooled to stone so he can escape." He tilts his head back towards the magma chamber. "He's been trapped for a long time."
"My brother's lightnings are easier to call than my frost," Loki says. "But I will try."
"Wait, Loki," Thor says as he is beginning to swing Mjolnir. "If we work together, you could direct my storm to sleet instead of rain."
"Would you allow that?" Loki is startled. "Would you be such a fool as to trust me within the heart of your power?"
"Yes, brother." Thor smiles. "I have always trusted you."
Loki shakes his head. "Well then, let us be trusting fools together." He takes a deep breath. His skin turns to ice blue, all the fire in his soul condensed into blazing blood-red eyes.
Thor swings his hammer into a blazing ball of lightning. Everyone except Ton'i retreats, forced back by the wind, Pepp'r clinging to Ton'i the longest, but even her determination fails. "Be ready, Loki!" Thor brings the lightning down to strike Ton'i's pearl and without pause continues the arc of the hammer until he's aiming it at the hole leading to the magma chamber. "NOW, BROTHER, WE STRIKE AS ONE!" Loki takes hold of Thor's hand around the hammer. Blue ice pours down their combined hands, into the hammer, and shoots out as a blast of freezing rain, which pours into the magma chamber until Loki staggers and falls to his knees. Thor drops his hammer and kneels next to him. Loki reaches out, but the hammer is in the way. He pushes at it. And it shifts. He grins at Thor. "Mjolnir let me move it. Even though I'm a frost giant it thought I was worthy."
"You are worthy," Thor says simply.
Ton'i rolls onto his side, coughs, and rolls his eyes. "Wow, I've got the worst heartburn ever." He smacks his mouth open and shut a few times. "Huh. Did someone kiss me? Sssteeve?"
Pepp'r wing-swats him in the back of the head. "Don't make me sorry I kissed you!"
Ton'i grins. "I knew you couldn't resist my charms."
Everyone is watching Pepp'r and Ton'i, so the crash and accompanying blast of cold air as H'ward breaks through the magma chamber wall comes as a surprise. The Mole Man attempts to take advantage of the distraction to flee. H'ward lunges forward, grabs the Mole Man in his jaws, shakes him once, tosses him in the air, and gulps him down. Then he burps. "Would have been better with a nice Beaujolais." He grimaces, and reaches up to his mouth with one fore'hand' to extract the Mole Man's slit eyeglasses from between his teeth before grooming his whiskers smooth. "Long time, no see, Sssteeve."
The phoenix nods. "Yeah, Fury's still around. He'll want to talk to you."
"Dad?" Ton'i says uncertainly. Pepp'r comes to stand next to him.
"Hey, Ton'i. Is that your mate? She's a bit small, isn't she?"
Pepp'r uses her wing to smack H'ward a really good one upside the head. He sneezes. "Oh, I like her," H'ward says with a smirk, "you inherited my taste for the feisty ones, I see."
***
"I don't want to live in a cave," Ton'i says petulantly.
"It's not a cave. It's a semi-enclosed mountaintop," Pepp'r says. "With nice, wide windows." Once the Mole Man was vanquished the Sleeping Giant's mountain trolls were easily persuaded that Burrruch was their king, and they'd cheerfully turned dozens of levels of twisty tunnels into apartments spacious enough even for Burrruch's big green alter-ego.
Burruch is temporarily on holiday with Loki and Thor (reunited with Helmfall), repairing the Rainbow Bridge in Asgard, and in his absence the trolls have returned to what they do best, sleeping. Happy and a host of his woodland friends are planting the mountain and the plains about it. It's worthwhile, now that the threat of eruption has been eliminated by Sssteeve and Rhodey working together to track and divert 'live rock' streams to a lake a few miles away-- they'll have an island there in a few years.
"It's a cave," Ton'i says, chin lifted stubbornly. "We could live in the forest. Or in the desert. Or maybe in a nice tropical island. Islands have fruit. You like fruit! Except for...kumquats?"
Pepp'r resumes polishing a large hollow set above one of the remaining magma chambers, one that Rhodey assured them wasn't building up pressure, and would simply keep the rock above comfortably warm. "Kumquats are fine. Ton'i. Maybe we'll visit the forests and deserts and islands later." She curls up inside the hollow. "Mmm, just the right temperature."
"Just right for what?" Ton'i nuzzles Pepp'r and for once she allows it.
Pepp'r rolls her eyes at him. "Rhodey told me I'd need this riddle."
"What?" Ton'i is distracted by the smoothness of Pepp'r's scales.
"In a marble hall white as milk, lined with skin as soft as silk, Within a fountain crystal-clear, A golden apple doth appear. No doors there are to this stronghold, yet thieves break in to steal its gold." Egg. Pepp'r growls. "But I'll kill anyone who tries to steal it.
"Steal WHAT?" Ton'i asks plaintively.
Pepp'r sighs and whispers in his ear. His eyes go wide and a silly grin spreads across his face. "Come to think of it, a semi-enclosed mountaintop isn't at all bad. Put in a small pool, some fur throws, a few rooms full of treasure, yeah." Ton'i turns to look at the brownies. "Hear that, guys, we're staying! Go make some coffee, ok?"
The brownies cheer and run off to create havoc elsewhere. They'll eventually return with coffee. Probably.
***
"Are you spying on Ton'i and Pepp'r?" Nagini asks when she finds Clint lying on his belly looking down through one of the small fissures in the mountain that Pepp'r had insisted on for ventilation- when you have both a fire and a smoke dragon in residence, you can't have too much fresh air.
"Not really. I'm just bored." Clint rolls onto his back and smiles at her. "Don't you ever get bored?"
Nagini tilts her head in a shrug. "Not since I decided to spy for Fury." She hesitates, and then says, "I could use a partner."
Clint asks, "What's it pay?"
"All the danger and lies you can eat. And me."
"That's the best offer I've ever had."
"I know," Nagini says smugly.
***
"So, H'ward, what do you think of your boy?" Fury asks. He's sitting at the head of a large, black table in the invisible floating headquarters of the Council of Dead Sorcerers. There are a lot of chairs around the table, but all the rest are empty. Dead sorcerers tend not to need to sit very often.
H'ward drains a large goblet of whiskey. He's lying down on the floor the full length of the table. He's put on a lot of weight (and cleared two counties of monsters in the process). "He's ill-mannered, reckless, profligate, and never knows when to keep his mouth shut."
"So, a chip off the old block," Fury says. He reaches up to run a finger down Coulson's head. The chameleon rolls his eyes at Fury and turns silver-gray paisley.
H'ward laughs. "Yeah. Here's to Ton'i." H'ward raises his glass.
"And to the Avengers," Fury replies.
"May we never need them again," H'ward says softly.
Coulson lifts a thimbleful of chameleon-cognac. "Amen."