Christmas Present
By Jelsemium (for Qweb)
A/N: I've been trying to write an Avengers story since I first saw the movie in June. This is not the story I set out to write, but it hijacked my thinking process. Then the cookies hijacked my thinking processes away from this story. Then I thought of a better ending for this story and tacked the end of this story on to the first story. (There will be a quiz later.)
A – V – E – N – G – E – R – S – A – S – S – E – M – B – L – E – !
Some days Steve Rogers hated the Twenty-first Century. The flying cars that Howard Stark had promised had never materialized. The war hadn't solved any of the problems the politicians said it would. Things hadn't changed for the better; they had just changed.
Steve longed for the Christmas of his childhood. He thought about sitting with his mother at the table in the kitchen while they waited for his father to get home for Christmas Eve dinner. Sometimes, they would pass the time drinking hot cocoa and playing Battleships with grids drawn on scratch paper. Other times they would take turns reading Dickens's A Christmas Carol aloud from a dog-eared copy that had belonged to his grandmother.
They never had a large tree. Sometimes they would only have a pile of pine boughs on the mantel. The decorations weren't as flashy as the modern ones. There weren't any lighted or musical ornaments. They'd only had some handmade ornaments, like birds whittled out of scrap wood, painted pine cones, yarn bows and a papier-mâché angel for the top.
Steve suppressed a sigh. They hadn't had much, but what they had was real. Looking around the common room, Steve compared the trappings of the new millennia with those of his childhood and found them wanting.
Instead of hot cocoa, Steve had something called a Peppermint Mocha Latte. There wasn't a tree. The ornaments consisted of gold and scarlet garlands draped around the room and a plastic pine wreath was hung over the fire burning merrily… on the flat screen television set.
Judging by the conversation, and occasional oath, Pepper Potts and Jane Foster were playing some version of Battleships. However, instead of sitting at a table facing each other over graph paper and cocoa, they were sitting on opposite sides of the room looking at the screens of their laptop computers.
Natasha Romanov and Bruce Banner were sitting in easy chairs, reading. Steve didn't have a clue as to what either was reading because both were using electronic pads rather than books.
Christmas in the 21st Century seemed too convoluted… All glitter and clamor and no heart. None of the people he was associated with seemed to appreciate the spirit of Christmas the way his parents had.
Steve sighed inwardly. Maybe that was the heart of his discontent, Steve admitted to himself. Christmas could never be entirely right without his parents. He couldn't say that the 21st Century was entirely responsible for his loneliness because his parents had passed away before the war.
He needed to follow Bing Crosby's advice and accentuate the positive, he decided. To minimize the negative, he had to remind himself that this century was not the purgatory that he was making it out to be.
Pepper looked over at him and gave him a bright smile. "Do you need a refill, Steve?" she asked, indicating his fancy coffee drink.
Steve shook his head. "No, I'm… good," he said, pleased to have remembered the correct phrasing. Okay, so, he and his new friends and allies didn't fully understand each other, but at least he wasn't alone anymore.
Jane called out a new letter/number combination.
"Hit!" Pepper said in disgust as she turned her attention back to her game.
Steve leaned back in his chair and decided that there were some things about 21st Century that he really did like. Right now, his favorite was his heated Starkalounger with deep muscle massages. He turned up the heat and took a sip of his Italian drink. He liked coffee, chocolate and peppermint, and he had to admit that they worked well together.
He eyed the decorations. Okay, they were gaudy, but they were kind of pretty. He made a face. Who was he kidding? There had to be something positive present before he could accentuate it. There was nothing positive about the garlands, they were hideous.
What they needed was a tree… A real Christmas tree!
Just then, a Christmas tree walked in the door.
Steve sat up and blinked, wondering what the HELL had been in that mocha drink. The others in the room turned at the commotion and many eyebrows were raised.
"Ho! Ho! Ho, my friends!" Thor boomed genially.
Ah, all was explained.
Then Thor lowered his voice and spoke in normal tones. "Season's greetings!"
Thor maneuvered carefully into the room, his right fist holding the trunk of a mighty Douglas fir. He had a cardboard box tucked under his left arm. Steve guessed that it contained Christmas tree decorations. The tree streamed in behind the thunder god…
And streamed in…
And streamed in…
It was like watching the starship during the opening scene of Star Wars, Episode IV.
The tree was at least eight feet tall. Finally, Clint and Tony appeared. Clint was holding the top tree and helping to guide it. Tony was a few steps behind Clint, carrying the tree stand. Of course, most of Tony's contribution was verbal. "Careful, Bird-brain, scratch that paint and you get coal in your stocking!"
"Suits me, Shellhead," Barton replied. "Do you have any idea how much that stuff sells for?"
"In US Dollars, it sells for 59.53 per short ton, 65.62 for a ton," Tony replied. "In Euros…"
"That was a rhetorical question!" Hawkeye's complaint was interrupted by Steve, who pried himself out of his Starkalounger to lend a hand.
Pepper and Jane abandoned their game to ooh and aah as Tony set up the stand. "Right there, Goldilocks," he instructed.
Thor rolled his eyes at the nickname, but held both his tongue and the tree. Truthfully, it looked like holding the tree was easier. As Thor set up the tree, Steve thought that he saw an arc reactor imbedded in the bottom.
Pepper obviously saw it, too, because she said, "Tony! You are not decorating this like with flashing garbage like that atrocity in the lobby!"
"What? My lobby tree is beautiful!" protested Tony.
"That metallic monstrosity is neither a tree nor beautiful," Pepper snapped.
Natasha said, with her usual charm and diplomacy, "That thing is hideous."
"I have an idea," Jane said in an apparent effort to change the subject. "How about having a tree decorating party?"
She looked at Pepper, of course.
"Sounds like fun," Pepper said. "Everybody can contribute something…" She gave Tony a heavy significant look. "… Tasteful and low key."
"Does that mean no Iron Man ornaments?" Clint stage whispered to Natasha.
Natasha, Pepper and Jane gave him dirty looks. Clint pretended to cringe.
"A Christmas tree has to have some lights," Tony sulked.
"Lights can be tasteful and low key, too," Pepper argued.
"I'll have Darcy send my ornaments from New Mexico," Jane said, still trying to avert an argument.
"That will give my parents time to send me some ornaments," added Pepper.
"Some of us will need to go shopping," Bruce said mildly. "I never had much in the way of Christmas decorations."
"Oo, sounds like fun," Clint said. "Let's go!"
"Not so fast, Legolas!" Tony said. "First you, Thor and Rogers have to help me put up the 'tasteful and low-key' lights."
Clint raised an eyebrow. "What? Don't you have people for that?" he demanded.
Tony rolled his eyes and sighed. "In case you hadn't noticed, Pinfeathers, you guys are my people.'
The women and Clint all "awwwed" at the same time. Thor and Bruce merely smirked.
"What?" Tony looked at them and then realized the implications of what he'd said. "Hey, wait! That was not meant as mush! This is not a moment!"
"Tony, you sentimental fool!" Clint mocked as Steve laughingly threw his arms around Tony, lifting the smaller man off his feet.
"Put me down, you overgrown…" Tony sputtered.
Steve squeezed just enough to leave Tony breathless, and he said, while Tony was unable to get a word in edgewise, "And God bless us, every one!"