9:05 am
Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Thor, Sam Wilson, Bucky Barnes, Natasha Romanoff, and Clint Barton all sat in the lounge area of the Avengers complex, waiting for the last member of the group, Scott Lang, to arrive.
"He was supposed to be here an hour ago," Tony complained.
"Oh, no," Clint jabbed a finger at the billionaire. "You don't get to complain. We had to reschedule this whole thing because of you not showing up yesterday."
"I forgot, alright?" Tony spread his hands innocently. Thor decided to step in and change the subject.
"AHEM!" He cleared his throat loudly, then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone. "Perhaps the Man of Ants is already among us, but smaller than we can see?"
There was an awkward pause before Steve voiced the obvious question.
"Why would he be hiding from us?"
Thor ignored him, instead focusing on scouring every square inch of floor space on his hands and knees. Scott walked in just as he was peering under a sofa.
"Sorry I'm late, guys," he apologized. "I had to... what is Thor doing?"
"Searching for you!" Thor cried, glaring up at him. He gestured to the floor. "Why aren't you hiding down here?" he demanded.
"Let it go, Thor," Hawkeye said, head in his hands.
"Seriously though, what took you so long?" Bucky asked.
"Well," Scott began, scratching his head. "I had a really long argument with Hank. He kept insisting on coming with me."
"Well now that you're here...," Steve started, but then Hank Pym walked into the room.
"Did I mention I lost the argument?" Scott asked nervously.
"Where's the bathroom in this dump?" Hank demanded.
Everyone stared at him for a long moment before Sam pointed him in the right direction and Hank wandered off. The stares followed Hank as he left the room, then transferred to Scott.
"Seriously, Scott?" Natasha asked.
"We've already got eight people," Sam added. "Decorating for Christmas can't need more than that! He's just going to get in the way!"
"Do you want me to try to take him back?" Scott asked. "It'll be another two hours at least."
"No, no, no," Steve shook his hands. "We're getting a late start as is. We'll just have to hope Mr. Pym can actually help."
"Found the bathroom!" Hank shouted from somewhere further into the complex.
"I'll get the post-its," Romanoff said, standing. She returned a minute later with nine sticky notes and a pen. "Alright. Here's how we're going to do this. There are going to be three groups. Indoor decorating..." She wrote 'Indoor' on three notes. "Outdoor decorating..." She made three 'Outdoor' notes. "And baking." She finished the last note and spread them out on the coffee table.
"We need a hat or something," Scott suggested.
Hawkeye jumped up and left the room, returning a moment later with a bowl from the kitchen.
"I said hat," Scott said.
"Or something," Hawkeye countered. Scott shrugged as Romanoff put the notes in the bowl and started mixing them around. Hank walked in just as she was finishing.
"I went ahead and fixed your toilet paper for you," he said. "It wasn't facing the wall at first, but everything's fine now."
"Sure, whatever," Tony waved the info aside. "Can we get started now?"
Steve gestured to the bowl. "Be my guest."
Tony plunged his hand in and came out with an Outdoor card. "Nope," he said. "Redo."
Steve pulled the bowl out of his reach. "Sorry, Stark, you only get one try."
"But I don't want to work out there," Tony glowered. "It's freezing!"
"What, none of your four thousand suits has heating?" asked Barnes. Tony threw his card at him, but it fluttered to the ground halfway between them.
"I've got indoor," Steve announced. He passed the bowl to Thor.
"I too have received the task of adding festivity to the interior of this structure," Thor announced.
"Baking," Romanoff announced.
"I'm with Mr. Frowny face over there," Clint said, pointing at Tony's disgruntled mope.
"Ha ha!" Scott cried in triumph, waving an Indoor card. "Now if anything goes wrong with baking, you can't blame me!"
"I'm sure we'll find something else to blame you for," Sam said, reaching into the bowl. He pulled out a Baking card. "Dang it! Baking? Again? Really?"
"It'll be fine, Sam," Steve tried to calm his friend down.
"Oh, sure," Sam scoffed. "I mean, the cake turned out so well last time!"
"If Scott had just done his job-," Tony began.
"It was never my job!" Scott cried.
Sam sighed at his Baking card. "The only way this could be worse is if I-,"
"I got Baking too," Barnes said.
"... get stuck with him," Sam finished.
"Hey," Hank frowned. "How come I get stuck with the last card? I didn't get to pick."
"Well, technically, you weren't supposed to even be here," Tony said, shooting Scott an annoyed glance.
"And now I've got to work with a Stark," Hank grumbled, staring at his Outdoor card.
"I'll trade with you," Sam offered instantly.
"No! No trades," Steve said. "Otherwise, what's the point of what we just did?"
With a good deal of grumbling from a few individuals, they split into their three groups and headed for their various work areas.
Indoor
9:30 am
"The decoration boxes are already out here," Steve said, "so the first thing we need to do is clear a space for the tree."
"I shall fetch a tree whilst thou does so," Thor declared. Without waiting for Steve's announcement that they already had a tree, the Asgardian spun his hammer and flew out through the skylight, which was not as open as he'd thought. There was a crash as the glass shattered and fell to the floor. "Cursed Windex!"Thor cried, struggling to regain stability. "It hath tricked me again!"
Steve and Scott stared after him as he flew away, then looked down at the newly created mess he'd left behind.
"I'll get a broom," Scott sighed.
"This job is cursed already," Steve declared, still unable to take his eyes off the sea of glass shards.
Twenty minutes of searching for a dustpan followed. In the end, they gave up and used Steve's shield.
"I guess there's no telling how long he's going to be gone," Steve sighed after they'd finished sweeping and moving furniture out of the way for the tree to go up. "We're just going to have to continue without him. So what next?"
Scott gestured to a nearby table. Two pairs of scissors and a pile of paper sat upon it. "Snowflakes," he said solemnly.
Five minutes later, when a S.H.I.E.L.D. officer passed through the room, he paused in surprise upon seeing Steve and Scott hunched over piles of paper snowflakes, their tongues sticking out in fierce concentration as the clipped tiny semicircles, rectangles, and triangles out of folded up pieces of paper. Later, he would pass through the room again but see only Steve. Scott had donned his Ant Man suit and shrunk down to get the tiny details just right.
Half an hour later, the pile of paper had been transformed into a heap of snowflakes on the table.
"Nice job, Scott," Steve clapped Lang on the back. "These are going to look great once we put them up."
"Thanks," Scott said, looking over the snowflakes. "This one you did is pretty cool. And this one...," he picked up another of Steve's creations, "... looks... just like it."
"Uh, yeah, you don't have to...," Steve mumbled in a weak attempt to stop Scott from examing the rest.
"Steve, these are ALL the same!"
"So? It was a time-saver!"
"No two snowflakes are the same!" Scott declared firmly. "We can only use one of these!"
"What, the rest get thrown away?" Steve crossed his arms.
"They have to be."
"Well," Steve said, positioning himself between Scott and the trash can, "I'd like to see you try it."
Scott, still in his suit, closed his helmet and accepted the challenge.
Outdoor
9:30 am
"Well," Clint said as he pulled a giant knot of lights out of the box, "this isn't exactly a promising start."
"Don't you think these are a bit... old-fashioned?" Tony asked.
"Yep," Hawkeye nodded, trying to untangle the mess in his hands. "And that's exactly why we're using them."
"I've got something better," Tony tried.
"Nothing you have could possibly be better," Clint shut him down.
"Come on, Barton, get with the program!" Tony pleaded. "This is going to be the future of Christmas decorating! I'm talking holographic Santa Claus flying through the air in-,"
"An Iron Man suit?" Hawkeye interrupted. Tony wisely controlled his surprise and refrained from finishing his sentence. "No holograms," Clint shook his head. "Now will one of you do something other than stand and watch me? We're in this together, remember?"
Tony and Hank stared at each other, hands in their pockets, each waiting for the other to move to help Clint.
"Come on, guys!" Hawkeye shouted, startling both of them. "Give me a hand with these!"
All three of them were then startled by a loud crash as Thor flew into the sky, yelling something
indistinct.
"That doesn't look like a good sign," Mr. Pym remarked. "Maybe I better check on how things are going inside...,"
"Oh, no," Tony grabbed Hank's arm as the older man turned to go, "I'm sure they're fine. Stay out here with Mr. Boring and his old-fashioned lights." He patted Hank on the back and started walking towards the door.
"And where are you going?" Clint asked, finally finding the plug end of the lights.
"To get a suit," Tony answered. "It's freezing out here. I can't feel my ears."
"We've been out here for three minutes!" Clint exclaimed. "You stay out and help, you don't need a suit."
"If I get frostbite, it's on you."
"Drama queen."
"Tyrant."
"Shut up and help."
With all three of them working on it, they got the lights untangled in only a few minutes.
"Hank," said Clint, "you can help by screwing all the larger bulbs into their sockets. Tony and I will put the small ones up."
"When did we decide you'd tell everyone what to do?" Tony asked.
Clint was prepared for the inevitable question. "Of the three of us, who has a house that they've hung lights on every winter for the last twenty years?"
The issue was not brought up again. Instead, Tony and Clint strung lights through the bushes along the path to the front door. Afterwards, they went around back to a storage area and fetched a ladder, carrying it back to the front.
"Where'd he go?" Tony asked suddenly. "Hank Pym. He's gone."
"Didn't even finish the lights yet, either," Clint observed.
"Oh, wait," Tony said, squinting. He pointed. "There he is."
A hundred yards away, in a field of snow, Hank Pym was running around with his arms raised in front of him. Clint and Tony watched in silence for a minute as Hank ran, jumped, and snuck through the empty field, pouncing on the snow ever so often.
"You want to know what he's doing?" Tony asked.
Clint shook his head. "No, I really don't," he said. "Too bad I'm about to find out."
The two of them started walking. Soon, they began to hear Hank saying things as he ran around.
"Get back here!" the old man cried in frustration. "Dang it, missed again!"
Now they saw the empty jar in one of Hank's hands, the lid in the other.
"Please tell me your not trying to catch invisible fireflies," Clint moaned.
"What?" Hank jumped, startled. "No! I'm trying to get this Pym particle. The little sucker's fast!"
"That's actually worse than invisible fireflies," Tony remarked.
"Aaaagh!" Hank cried. "It's getting away!" He ran off in a zig-zagging course through the snow.
My team sucks, Clint thought to himself.
Baking
9:30 am
"Can't believe this," Sam muttered. "Stuck with baking again. Why can't I hang lights? I could do that. But there's no way this is going to go well."
"Quit muttering and stir that bowl, Wilson!" Romanoff snapped.
"I AM STIRRING IT!" Sam yelled, increasing his speed and whipping bits of egg over the edge of the bowl.
"Where are all the measuring spoons?" asked Bucky, pulling drawer after drawer open without success.
"Just eyeball it," Romanoff told him. He angrily refused and the began to shout at each other in Russian.
Outdoor
10:15 am
Tony and Clint managed to convince Hank to stop chasing the particle and come back to the lights. They surprised themselves by having little trouble hanging lights along the edge of the roof. The only issue was that Tony refused to be handed lights. Clint hung, Tony passed him lights, and Hank (when he was paying attention) passed up hooks.
Next came lawn decorations and wreaths for the windows. Tony volunteered for the wreath-hanging as Clint and Hank struggled with wire reindeer.
We have too many windows, Tony decided after the fourth wreath. And these dumb things are so prickly! Holographic wreaths wouldn't be prickly. "But no," he muttered. "Mr. FunSponge doesn't like anything that isn't GAAAAAAH!"
Steve Rogers' face had just slammed up against the next window and was being pressed hard against it by tiny Scott Lang. Of course, Tony didn't see Scott and thought that Steve was mocking him with an ugly face.
"You think you're so funny, don't you?" Tony said, annoyed.
"Hhnnegnh!" Steve replied.
Tony hung a wreath over his face.
Baking
11:00 am
"It sounds like there's a war going on in the lounge," Bucky remarked.
"I'd feel sorry for them," Sam replied, "if I wasn't fighting a war on food myself."
"Where did all the counter space go?" Romanoff asked in bewilderment, searching for a clear space to work amongst all the various ingredients and tools.
"Just put some stuff away," Barnes suggested.
"I can't remember where anything goes!"
"Forget it!" Sam cried. "We don't need the counters. Put stuff on the floor!"
"Aaagh!" Bucky cried. "Who turned the oven on already?!"
"I was pre-heating it!" Sam said defensively.
"To what? Nine thousand degrees?!"
"Quick, put the cookies in!" Romanoff cried.
"But they're still blobby!" Sam argued.
But Barnes had already taken the cookie and, using his metal arm, put them in the oven. "There," he said. "Now, let's not forget to take them OUT this time."
"Dude!" Sam pointed. "Your arm's on fire!"
"What?" Barnes looked at his arm. "Aah! Get it off! Put it out!" He flailed, accidentally hitting the open egg carton on the counter and sending five eggs flying through the air towards Natasha's horrified face.
Indoor
11:00 am
"HA! Did it!" Scott raised his arms in triumph. Then he collapsed next to the trash can in exhaustion.
"You monster," Steve panted. "What did those snowflakes ever do to you?"
Scott had no answer, but it turned out he didn't need one. A loud banging sound from the front door distracted them both from their recent conflict. Wearily, they got up to see what was going on. When they reached the hallway, they both put a palm over their faces.
Thor was attempting to cram the four foot wide oak trunk of a massive oak tree through the front door.
"Greetings, friends!" Thor smiled. "I have returned with the perfect tree for this festive holiday!" He continued trying to shove the tree inside, but met with no success. "Uh, perhaps one of you could aid me in getting the tree inside?"
"Thor," Steve began, "there's no way we'll ever be able to-,"
Scott threw a shrink disc like a shuriken. The tree instantly shrunk to the size of the traffic cone. "Done," he announced.
"Wonderful!" Thor exclaimed in delight.
"Yeah," Steve said through gritted teeth, "great going, Scott." He added more in a hiss so that Thor wouldn't hear. "Now we don't have an excuse to reject it and use the one we already have!"
"We'll just distract him and put the right one up while he's not looking," Scott replied.
Muffled screaming began from the direction of the kitchen.
"Perfect timing," Scott whispered. "Get the tree." Loudly, he addressed Thor. "Let's go see what's the matter in the kitchen, buddy!"
Thor listened to the sounds from the kitchen and frowned. "Perhaps some villian, knowing the rest of your are weak and helpless, has attacked in my absence."
"Exactly!" Scott said, giving him a pat on the back. Behind them, Steve slipped off to set up the tree.
Thor held his hammer ready as Scott opened the door to the kitchen. Inside was chaos. Barnes' metal arm was covered in flames, Sam was beating at it with a damp towel, and Romanoff's head was dripping with eggs. She ran around blindly, searching for the sink and knocking ingredients onto the floor.
"What madness has gotten into them?" Thor asked.
Scott watched a moment later. "Meh. They're fine," he decided.
Thor lowered his hammer and began to leave, so Scott was forced to come up with another way to distract him.
"Hey, uh, Thor," he started, at first having no plan, but then landing on an idea. "Could you go to the storage area to look for more decorations? I think we forgot a box."
"Of course!" Thor replied. "I shall retrieve these decorations with all haste!"
He walked off and Scott breathed a sigh of relief. Quickly, he went to the lounge and helped Steve set up the tree. They had scarcely finished when yelling erupted from outside.
With a groan, they went to investigate. Neither of them saw Thor return with a large box in his hands.
Outdoor
11:10 am
"Get them off me!" Tony yelled, slapping himself all over.
"Don't smack my associates!" Hank yelled back.
"Why did you even bring those here?" Hawkeye demanded.
"They're here to help!" Hank told him. "I didn't think Stark was going to freak out so much."
"You poured a quart of fire ants on my head!" Tony yelled at him. "Of course I'm going to freak out!"
"One, I'm surprised you knew what kind of ants they are," Hank said. "Two, I did it because you keep complaining about how cold you are. They'll keep you warm."
"That's not why they're called fire ants!" Stark snapped, then smacked his arm.
"What's going on out here?" Steve asked, coming out the door. Scott peeked out of the doorway, but stayed inside.
"Tony's got ants in his pants," Clint told him.
"AAAGH!" Tony cried. "One bit me! I thougt you were in control of these...," He cut off his sentence to glare at Hank.
Hank shrugged. "Oops."
"Wait, he literally has ants in his pants?" Scott asked.
"Yep," Clint said.
"Do you need any ants to help out in there, Scott?" Hank asked.
"No, Hank," Scott groaned. "I really, really, really don't."
"I've got plenty if you-,"
"Bye, Hank," Scott said, disappearing into the base. Steve followed him inside.
Tony waited until the door was closed, then threw a snowball at Mr. Pym. He regretted it a moment later when he recieved four more bites.
Indoor
11:15 am
"I wish Hank hadn't insisted on coming," Scott groaned.
"Just be glad he's on their team," Steve said. "Even though instead we get-," He cut off abruptly.
Scott looked at Steve in confusion, then followed Steve's eyes.
"...Thor," Steve finished, staring in horror at what their teammate had done in their short absence.
Cobwebs covered the walls.
A tombstone sat under every stocking.
A fuzzy black spider hung from the ceiling, and worst of all...
The tree was topped with the open-mouthed head of a zombie.
"Ta-Da!" Thor spread his arms wide. "Is this festive enough for you?"
"Uh...," said Scott, but nothing more. He stared at the zombie head, unable to either speak or look away.
"Thor, where...," Steve choked out, "Where did you get these decorations?"
"They are the ones you forgot," Thor told him. "I was tasked with retrieving them by Scott."
Steve looked at Scott. Scott turned his head towards Steve, but his eyes remained glued to the gruesome tree topper. He slowly raised a finger.
"This," he said, his voice cracking. "Ahem. This... is... not my fault."
"I think we both know that it is," Steve said before turning back to Thor. He was about to try and explain to Thor why they couldn't use these decorations, but an explosive bang sounded from the kitchen, drawing everyone's attention.
"EVERYTHING'S FINE!" Sam Wilson's hysterical voice cried out an instant later.
"DON'T COME IN!" Barnes added.
Steve looked to heaven for patience then back at Thor. It was then he saw how happy Thor was with his work, smiling proudly at the plastic rotten head he'd topped the tree with. He found he couldn't bring himself to tell Thor to take it down.
"Looks great, Thor," he sighed.
Scott's head whipped around to face him. "No," he said. "No, no, no. No! We... we can't... NO!"
"It's staying, Lang," Steve told him. "All of it."
Scott paled and ran outside.
Outdoor
11:20 am
"That," Hawkeye sighed, "is the last of the lights."
"Too late," Tony declared. "My fingers all have hypothermia."
"Shut up."
"And pneumonia."
"Quit it!"
Scott Lang, pale as death, burt out the front door. Clint, Tony, and Hank watched in alarm as he ran through the snow for a few seconds before stumbling and falling to his knees. Scott gave a long, low, anguished moan, and face-planted into the snow.
"That was... odd," Hank observed. "Maybe they need some ants in there after all."
12:00 pm
"So," Steve began, "Outdoor report."
"Lights are up," Hawkeye said.
"Wreaths are hung," Tony added.
"Lawn is decorated," Hank thought he finished, but Tony added more.
"And I can feel my toes again," he said. "Not that anyone cares."
"I see you've done some interesting work in here," Hank observed the indoor team's work. "Christmas at my house doen't usually have as many ghosts and zombies as this."
"It was Thor's idea," Scott said quickly.
"I did the placemant, true," Thor told them, "but I couldn't have done it without-,"
"HOW'D BAKING GO?" Scott cried desperately.
"Weeeell," Bucky winced. "The baking... it uh...,"
"He has no idea how the cookies turned out," Sam said. "He couldn't bear to look at them."
"Well, how did they turn out?" Steve asked.
"I have no idea," Sam replied. "I couldn't bear to look."
"Natasha?" Steve asked tiredly.
"I should probably just show you," she said, getting up. "It's... kind of hard to put into words."
"Oooooh no," Bucky moaned, putting his head in his hands.
Natasha returned with a covered plate, which she placed on the central coffee table. Afterwards came a minute where everyone sat and looked at each other, none of them daring to lift the cover.
"Gaah!" Hawkeye flung his hands up. "I can't take it anymore!" He reached out and lifted the cover.
Underneath sat forty golden blobs, chocolate chips peeking from just under their surfaces.
"They...," Sam said, reaching out and picking one up, "they're not... black?"
Bucky broke one in half. "They're not hard!" he gasped. He bit into it and his eyes went wide. "They're perfect."
Sam's attention snapped to Bucky. "They're perfect?" He looked back at the cookie and took a bite. "They're perfect! They're PERFECT!"
"WE DID IT!" Barnes jumped out of his seat.
Everyone watched in shock as Sam and Barnes hugged each other and jumped up and down, tears of relief and joy flowing freely down their faces. The cry of 'we did it' was repeated almost a dozen times.
Of course, as soon as they'd calmed down, they couldn't stop hugging fast enough.
"Hmph! Ahem!" Sam said, nodding at everyone as he did so.
"Showed those cookies who's boss," Barnes added.
"Almost set the base on fire, though," Scott remarked.
"And Romanoff's head looks a bit sticky," Tony observed.
"That's just the lighting," Natasha told him. "And also, we're out of eggs."
"Never fear!" Thor said, jumping up. "I shall go forth and procure us a dozen eggs without delay!" He swung his hammer, looking at the skylight. But then he frowned, thinking better of it. "Thou shalt not fool me twice in one day, Windex," he growled. He launched himself towards a wall window instead. It was not open.
THE END