A Christmas Story
T'was the week before Christmas & Nixon, the louse, sent Eddie to Kabul, leaving Liv alone in the house. Spidey's been put out on the street & poor web head has nothing to eat. Old Black Tom's tired of Logan's crap, he's visiting his son & that's that.
Prelude: Sentinels Roasting on an Open Fire
New York Thruway, en-route to X-Institute, December, 1974
I: Liv
Now, this might come as a great shock to you, but I fuckin' love Christmas.
It's my favourite time of year.
The Old Man, Christmas was really his kind of holiday. He always made a big deal out of it. He used to say that when he was a kid, he never had any Christmas, so now, he was going to have all the Christmas a man can get. Eddie he's like that about it, in away, but not like the Old Man. Maybe it's because Christmas is sort of a shiny, bright, crazy, flashy kind of holiday.
Yunno, flamboyant and nuts.
A real Crazy Jack Napier, the Joker, Clown Prince of Crime kind of shindig.
Decorated the whole bunker, and I mean decorated, like Macy's decorates. It took the goons days to get the stuff up. I think when he put the lights on, the docks flickered on and off.
When I was little, Ma, made cookies, and after, the Old Man, he's have 'em brought in, but then I started making them. And we'd sing Christmas songs, the Old Man played them on his baby grand in the living room, and we'd watch old movies.
He loves Christmas. And he could always do something to make it merry for you. Christmas of '69, I was at a real low point in my life, I was drinkin' pretty heavy, even for me, and seein' a shrink and doin' crazy shit, and in the course of a bar fight, not even workin', I wound up with a knife in me two days before Christmas, on the docks.
And didn't the Old Man find me, and bring me home, and take care of me, and manage to make the season bright for me, anyway?
Just lookin' at the lights and how he had all his goons dressed like elves wearing Rudolf antlers and big red noses, it made me laugh. And the Old Man had me on hot toddies and good cheer and some good meals, and I really felt better, I actually had a good Christmas.
That's when I figured out the true meaning of Christmas, which is to make the best of what you got with who you got, and be glad you got it.
That's what I try to do, for my friends, and for myself.
Anyway, every year he's not at Arkham he has this big Christmas party at his bunker. I don't go anymore, conflict of interests, you know, but when I was a kid, it was a lot of fun.
All these crazy-looking people in weird costumes, all drunk and slapping each other on the back and singing "Jingle Bells" off-key and laughing at their own jokes.
Kind of like the big party at the Avengers Mansion, every year, except for some reason masks have better singing voices than villains do.
And I always got lots of presents.
Even after I moved in with Bruce, when I'd go see the Old Man, Jesus, did I get a lot of presents.
Even now.
And when I was little, we'd go see the big tree in Rockefeller Center and go ice-skating, and all that crap. And on Christmas Eve, he'd ship me over to Edie and Aggie Blake and Ivan's place, you know, Edie's old house, in Brooklyn, so they could take me to Church.
I still do that, every year.
Eddie says if you wanna even have an outside chance of not going to Hell, you gotta go to Church on Good Friday, Easter, and Christmas.
Anyway, I always looked forward to Christmas.
And once Dick and me came to live at Wayne Manor, Pop couldn't very well have little kids around, and no Christmas, so he started doing the whole Christmas thing, again, which I guess he hadn't done since he was a little kid.
And now Alfred and Dick and me, we do up Wayne Manor like the Old Man used to do up his bunker.
After we throw that light switch, it's goodbye Long Island.
I mean, what's not to like about Christmas? It's an excuse to be happy, and see your friends, and celebrate making it through another year.
That's always a good thing, right?
Jesus, even Eddie likes Christmas. He goes back to his old house every year to help Ivan put lights all over the place, but they're always drunk when they do it, and somebody always falls off the porch or off the ladder and lands in the bushes.
Me, every year, I have this Christmas party, just for my friends, in my wing of Wayne Manor, which, after I get done with it, looks like the North Pole.
And every year, Logan doesn't come to it, and I have to go and get him.
Hank tells me, every year, they have to drag him out of his room on Christmas.
He hates Christmas.
Out of all the masks and villains I ever met, he's the only one who hates Christmas.
Shit, even his brother Vic shows up at the Society of Supervillains Christmas party.
Well, maybe this year.
Anyway, about a week or so before Christmas, there was that shit with the rogue Sentinel that went after the X-Institute.
The fuckin' government, lemme tellya! They fuck up and send some monster to kill you, and you have to get rid of it, and then, you figure the least they could do would be to come and get this shit off your lawn, so you can decorate for goddamn Christmas, right?
Yeah, fat chance.
So good old Crazy Paulie, he always needs a little dough, and everybody needs a little dough around Christmas, so I got him this deal with Professor X that him and me and Pat Blake, Paulie's brother, we'd come up in the wartime truck with that backhoe Ivan stole from the last construction site where he worked, and strip it, cut it up for scrap, and haul it away.
When we left the city, there were just a few flakes in the air, but the closer we got to Westchester, the thicker the snow got.
We were getting funny looks from the other, and mostly stranded drivers on the Thruway, and why not?
It wasn't every day that you saw a honest to God military truck barrelling down the highway, with what looked like three crazy hippies stuffed into the cab, and me and Pat and Paulie were probably singing "Jingle Bells" loud enough for the whole world to hear us.
Anyway, Pat's truck is this Ford former Vietnam supply and troop transport that Pat drove during the war, so we had no trouble navigating the snowy, icy roads, especially not with the former Sgt. Patrick Blake, USMC Special Forces behind the wheel.
And me, 1st Sgt. Trivelino J. Napier, USMC Special Forces, riding shotgun.
We got to the white-blanketed X-Institute at five AM, sharp, right on schedule.
Professor X, like I said, he offered Paulie a nice piece of change, and Pat, even though he was in college and had a job, he couldn't resist Professor X's generous offer for the dismantling and removal gig, not to mention the scrap value.
Me, I was there to cannabalise the monster's electronic and mechanical innards. I mean, I got a Level 10 security clearance, and I'm not allowed to touch Sentinels, because I "associate with mutants."
Fuck that noise.
What Nick doesn't know won't hurt him.
Not only am I gonna figure out what makes these things tick, I'm gonna steal every bit of its guts that I can carry.
We all hopped out of the truck, and began to unload, and while the boys were still wrestling with that fucked-up old backhoe, I had the welder's hood on, and the acetylene torch fired up, and I was cutting my away into the score of the century.
Pat and Paulie went to work, also with welding torches, cutting the robot into sections.
The noisy part didn't begin until they started attacking the sections with sledgehammers, to try and separate the plates.
Then, when I got in, it turned out I was going to have to remove whole sections of the thing, so I went back into the truck and got Pop's adamantium-bladed power saw.
Another handy-dandy industrial product brought to you by Wayne Enterprises.
The noise was loud and unpleasant to everyone in the mansion, but to Logan's sensitive ears it must have sounded like a record of a family of alcoholic beavers with metal teeth chewing down an iron forest being broadcast over the PA system of the loudest rock band in the world, which is the Who, but that is neither here or there.
He came out in just his pants and his boots.
You should have seen the look on his face.
Even Logan was not prepared to see Crazy Paulie Blake, naked from the waist up, and just as tattooed as I am, in the blowing snow, with his long hair in one braid and his Rasputin beard in another, standing on top of a section of dead Sentinel, singing "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer" as he separated it's metal plates with a ten pound sledgehammer.
Swinging it from the hips on down, you know?
"What the fuck is this?" he asked.
"Huh? Oh, good morning, Logan. I just got this little job to do, here." Paulie says.
"It looks like a big fuckin' job. Where are those sparks comin' from?"
"Me! I want the guts!" I said.
It was a good thing Pat was there.
Pat's relatively sane, unlike me and Paulie.
Logan knows that.
He was one of Pat's CO's.
"Pat, lemme ask you. What the fuck is this."
"We're just up here getting rid of this thing for you. Professor X is paying Paulie and a whole G to get this hunka shit outa here by tonight. And we get the salvage rights for the scrap. If we can do it by noon, Cyke promised us an extra five hundred."
Logan climbed up on the shell beside Paulie.
"You cut me in for four hundred and a third of the scrap, and we'll be done by noon."
"Three hundred and another two hundred, flat from the scrap deal."
"Three-fifty, another three-fifty from the scrap, and a case of St. Pauli Girl."
"Done." Pat agreed.
Snikt!
"You're doin this all wrong, Paulie. The seam's right here."
A little later in the day, after the roads were cleared, a blue-grey Bentley glided up the drive and past the now desiccated Sentinel.
I was just loading the last of the parts into the big metal container Pat hauled out of the truck for me when that elderly backhoe, gave up the ghost in the cold.
I told Ivan when I stuck it back together any way I knew how that it wasn't going to last, but we'd all been hoping it wouldn't die before the job was done.
So Pat and Paulie and Logan were reduced to picking up the heavy pieces of metal and carrying them into the truck.
And I was trying to figure out how I was going to get a dumpster full of Sentinel guts back into said truck.
That's where the Bentley comes in.
The window of the Bentley opened a crack, and a long, imperious white hand protruded, after which the metal slabs began to file into the truck in an orderly fashion.
Followed by the dumpster.
Then the window opened all the way.
"Give my regards to your father at Arkham, Trivelino."
"I will, Erik. Thanks for helping us out." I said
"Was that a Sentinel?" he asks me.
"It was."
"And were those its electronic and mechanical innards?"
"They were."
"Trivelino, you're not going to use those Sentinel parts to try and take over the world, are you?"
"I just might, Erik."
"That's the spirit, my girl. Merry Christmas."
"Happy Hannukah." I replied.
"Thank you. You will be at our party, this year, won't you? We need at least one Napier to make it a Merry Christmas."
"I wouldn't miss it for the world."
Magneto continued on up the drive.
Good old Charlie, he's always trying to get his old friend to come back into the fold.
Magneto's my father's second-in-command, and unlike the Old Man, I think he always figured I'd land on their side of the fence, someday.
He's probably crazier than the Old Man is, but how the fuck else were we going to load the truck?
That's another funny thing. I've been around Erik all my life. I know he's a diabolical supervillain, and I think I've fought with the X-Men against him, a few times, in his costume, but, out of it, he's my father's friend who taught me how to play chess.
That's why he comes to see Charlie Xavier.
To play chess.
Crazy world.
Anyway, Logan didn't like it, but considering his history with Magneto, that's no surprise.
"What's Chuck have him here for? More chess?" Logan snarled.
"At least the job's done. I'll go in and get the money." Paulie announced.
Pat started up the truck, and Paulie got in.
I hung around for a little bit, to talk to Logan.
"So, are you coming to my Christmas party, you fucking Scroogey old bastard?"
"I don't like Christmas, darlin'. You know that."
"Well, there's free food and free beer and everyone you know that you do like will be there. C'mon, Logan. You didn't show up last year, and it wasn't the same."
"You never came to get me."
"Yeah, I know. I was mad at you. If you don't come this year, I'll come to get you with that adamantium-bladed power saw. C'mon, man! I got you the best goddamn present in the whole fuckin' world! An' if you don't want me to keep it, you gotta show up under your own steam."
Logan shook his head.
"Alright, darlin', I'll think about it. Maybe I'll show up."
"That's the spirit, Ebenezer! Okay, I gotta roll. See you on Wednesday! Merry Christmas!"
"Yeah, yeah."
So, with the backhoe broken, I had to get Jon to transport me and the dumpster back to the Batcave, after Paulie and Pat went back into their house and I told them I was just gonna wait for Pop to show up with transportation.
I'll tell you who was gonna have a Merry Christmas.
No sooner was I at the Batcave than Jon, and Tony, and Bruce were digging into that dumpster like kids in a candy store.
You know, if you really think about it, you take four mad scientist masks and stick them in a super-secret super-lab beneath the earth with a dumpster full of extra-super-secret spy-type tech, well, if we wanted to, I guess we could have figured out how to take over the world.
Better us than them, right?
Right?
Chapter One: All I Want for Christmas Is A Place To Sleep
New York City, December, 1974,
I: Peter
It was a lovely night.
Well, outside, about six inches of snow had fallen and traffic was snarled, but when you travelled by web and all you could see from way up high was Christmas lights and snow, it was still a lovely night.
In MJ's apartment in the Village, it was an especially lovely night, and he still had a couple of hours before work, and then class.
A little time to roll over, take a little snooze with his beautiful MJ.
God bless us, every one.
"Peter, is there any chance that I can come and stay over at your new apartment, tonight? It's not that late, yet."
Wow.
That blew it.
Think fast, Spidey.
"I'm still unpacking. The place is a mess. Hey, is that the time? I better get my pants on. Can't be late for work. Crime never sleeps. It doesn't even get drowsy and nod out, once in awhile."
Good save.
"Pete, why are you in such a hurry, all the sudden?"
"I don't want to see anybody get mugged for Christmas. So, when can I see you again, MJ?"
"I don't think even muggers are going to be out on a night like this. Who are they going to mug? Each other? Stay with me. It's snowing. And freezing."
"I can't. Duty calls."
"And you have to answer. Okay. Well, how about I'll see you the day after tomorrow? Right after rehersal. That should give me some time to recover."
"I'm sorry, MJ. I love you so much, I just can't help myself, sometimes."
"I'm not complaining. Pete, you can stay, really."
"No I can't. Gotta go out and make a Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night. Goodnight, MJ."
He gave her a kiss, shoved his clothes into his bag and had his costume on and he was out the window before MJ could lodge another protest.
There was a very good reason that Peter couldn't have MJ over to his apartment and that was that he didn't have one, anymore.
Nor could he afford a dorm room; it would be hard to keep his secret safe in one of the NYU dorms.
The Harlequin, who had given him a job as her TA, had a Murphy bed in her office at NYU, a leftover from Liv's days as an alcoholic with a tendency to sleep where she fell.
She very rarely used it anymore, especially not at night, and Peter had a key to her office.
He slept there, and kept his costume there, knowing it would be safe, and used his student ID to get into the school gym to shower and shave.
Nobody had found him out yet, and nobody would, hopefully.
Meanwhile, he was saving every dime he had, eating only once a day, if that, and sometimes then on the charity of friends.
Or even sorta friends.
He was sitting at Grossmann's, in-costume, having an egg-cream, drinking it slowly, and drooling over the pastrami on rye with swiss that Wolverine, sitting at the next table, was having, along with some chips, and coleslaw, and a pickle and…
And Peter looked back at his plate when Logan realised he was looking at him.
"You hungry, kid?" Logan asked.
"I'm starving. I'm on this great new diet. I eat once or twice every two days and go out and fight crime. It's great. I'm losing lots of weight. At this rate, I'll be dead by Valentine's Day." Peter admitted.
Logan bought him lunch.
Peter ate half and took the other half back to the office for dinner.
Just thinking about eating made his stomach growl.
It was hard to be Spider Man on less than five bucks a day.
Even that old devil J. Jonah Jameson expressed concern.
Well, something like concern.
"Hey, Parker? Did you join the goddamn Moonies or something?"
"No sir."
"Are you on drugs? What are ya doin' with the money I'm paying you? You're not eating it. You look like hell."
"I'm saving up, sir. Hard times."
"Saving up? For what? Your funeral? Here's fifty cents. Go buy a couple hot dogs. You can't chase that fiend Spider Man on fumes."
Peter ate the two hot dogs, and that was all he'd had to eat the day before.
He needed every dime, because all he wanted for Christmas was this tiny little basement studio apartment on Bleeker, in the building that Max and Sophie Grossmann owned.
It was close to MJ, close to school, close to work.
You shared a bathroom with the other guy in the other basement apartment, and the guy upstairs on the same floor as the john, but it seemed like heaven to Pete Parker.
Meanwhile, it wasn't too busy of a night in the big city; too cold and too snowy, just like MJ said.
The only people he ran into were other masks, out on patrol; and it was bitter cold. He nearly froze, and ended up standing around a steel barrel full of burning trash with Rorschach for an hour or so, before Nite Owl arrived in his nice, warm Owlship, and was kind enough to feed Peter donuts and coffee, and let him take some home.
"Did you hear about the Comedian?"
"No. What did he do?"
"It's lousy, even for him. The President sent him off to Afghanistan on some crazy mission. He might not even be back by Christmas. You can imagine how happy Liv is about that. God only knows what she's going to do. So, watch your step, Pete."
"I will."
Rorschach and Nire Owl dropped him off near NYU, and thus it was that Spider Man knocked off early and Pete Parker unlocked the door of Liv Napier's office and put on the lights.
He hoped she wasn't going to blow three years of sobriety over this.
It was times like this made him think about a career as a pro wrestler.
He locked the door, walked across the room and pulled down the Murphy bed.
Peter took off his mask and sat down on the bed.
For one thing he'd have money.
Lots of money.
And fame, let's not forget fame.
Millions of people would love Spider Man, rather than mistrust him.
You'd have a warm place of your own to sleep and something to eat.
He tried to think of what Uncle Ben might have said.
He probably would have urged Peter to take the punch, and go back to living with Aunt May for awhile, until he could afford the room in the Village.
Pete flipped the switch that turned on Liv's ten million Christmas lights, as well as the lights on the little artificial Christmas tree in the corner.
He didn't begrudge it to her, or even to Eddie.
Their popularity.
Like most sane people, being in Eddie Blake's presence made him a little nervous, but if you weren't somebody he was planning on turning into a greasy spot, he wasn't such a bad guy.
Still, why was it that they could kill more people than cancer and they were loved and respected and he did his best not to seriously hurt anybody, and was feared and mistrusted?
New Yorkers.
You never can tell.
Pete left the Christmas lights on while he was sleeping; they were on a timer, and besides, they made him feel better.
His tingling spider senses shocked Peter awake, a few hours later.
Somebody was coming.
Not that you needed spider senses to figure this one out, it was the screaming in the hallway rather than the tingling of his spider senses that tipped him.
"…and I understand how you feel, Napalm, completely, but we you can't just go in and murder the man without having a plan…"
Calm, reasonable, sober voice.
"Bullshit! That son-of-a bitch! Things have been FUBAR because of him for a long fuckin' time! And this, this is the last motherfuckin' straw! I'd be doing the world a big fucking favour, that dirty cocksuckin' sunnuvabitch."
Loud, furious drunken voice.
His first thought was to go out the window, but he had his costume locked away, and it would look odd for Peter Parker to be clinging to an outside wall.
"You dropped your keys. No, I'll get them."
"Just what the fuck are we doin' here, anyway?"
Why did he take his costume off?
Oh, right, it was after two and he wanted to go to sleep.
Silly Spider-Man, sleep isn't for masks!
"Because we have to plan this out, first."
"Gimme the whiskey."
Key in the lock.
"You've had enough whiskey, you bad little pixie. God, good whiskey makes me so fucking horny."
Peter was still putting on his costume when the door opened and all the lights came on.
Having no other options open, he leapt into the tiny storage closet.
Definitely time to seriously consider Aunt May and Forest Hills.
II: Mac
John "Mac" McClatchey, proprietor and regular bartender at Trivelino Mac's, located in scenic downtown Bensonhurst, was well used to seeing his red-haired adopted niece, affectionately known to her closest friends as "Napalm" drunk.
She spent some of her worst moments as a degenerate alcoholic, drinking in his bar, and living above it in one of the flop rooms.
Liv had been such a drunk that everyone, her stepfather, her father, her friends, everyone who knew her, could count on her to be drunk all the time, and blackout drunk on occasion. They agreed with Mac that it was better for her to both drink and flop where he could watch over her, than have her lying drunk and bloody in the street after some bar brawl, whether the blood on her was hers, the other guy or guys, or both.
But that all ended in 1971.
Which wasn't to say that Liv quit drinking, on the S.H.I.E.L.D Moderation Program, you were allowed between 3 and 5 drinks per day, and, once every three months, permitted a special occasion.
Which also wasn't to say that Liv stopped fighting; the only thing that would put Liv Napier's fists down was the grave.
Nor was it to suggest that the violent, hair trigger temper which was the only flaw in her otherwise sunny disposition had gone anywhere.
It was just that it became blessedly rare that you had Liv drunk, angry, and violent.
But, she thundered in out of the snow on a full head of steam, half-crocked, with a spatter of fresh blood on her army parka, and the night was still young.
He was pretty sure it had to do with her old man being out of town for Chirstmas.
"Whiskey, Uncle Mac." She said, scowling at the crowd.
The regulars began to take defensive positions.
Mac set her up with a shot of Jack Daniels.
She looked at it like the glass was full of warm piss.
"I said whiskey, Mac! And leave the bottle."
"Bushmills 1608?"
"That's whiskey, ain't it?"
Mac brought his niece the most expensive Irish whiskey in the bar, a fresh bottle, and didn't bother with a glass.
"This your special occasion tis month? Because you're not blowing your sobriety on my watch."
"You bet it is, Uncle Mac. I'm gonna kill that cocksucker Tricky Dick Nixon, tonight."
"Really? Shit, it's on the house."
Napalm cracked the open the bottle, and took a slug.
"Alright, so, are any of you sonsabitches Republican sonsabitches? Because, if one of you fuckin' sonsabitches can kick my ass, I'll let that cocksucker Nixon live."
"I don't allow Republicans in my place." Mac reminded her.
"Hey, you crazy bitch, you can't just go threatening to kill the president! I'll bet I can knock your ass out."
The speaker, a man nobody had seen before that night, was a middle-aged fellow.
Rather beefy, shirt and tie, no jacket, and an overcoat.
German or Scottish, by the look of him, maybe both, and worse for him, he looked like he might be Napalm's type.
"Is that a fact? Well, Mr. Whoever-The-Fuck, come on over here and take your best shot."
"I'm not hitting a woman. Especially not a crazy drunk woman, with blood all over her clothes."
Liv grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels that she'd turned her nose up at, and threw it at the man, missing his head by less than an inch.
It hit the wall, and exploded.
The man swore, and ran for the door, and Liv laughed.
"Go ahead and run, you cowardly son of a bitch! You just missed your lucky night! Awww, fuck it. I'm gonna go over and see Steve. Steve don't like him, either. Merry Christmas, Mac."
Napalm put a hundred dollar bill on the bar, and left.
"What was all that about?" one of the regulars asked.
"The G called Eddie in for a mission. He might not be back for Christmas." Mac told him.
"Aww, shit. Poor Napalm."
"Poor Napalm? Try poor New York." Mac laughed.
III: Steve
It was just going to be one of those nights.
Bernie was having a party for some of her bohemian art school friends at their apartment, and it wasn't that Steve didn't like her art school friends, he just didn't understand one word that came out of their mouths.
And there was this one jerk that she knew, Tyler Something-or-Other, every time he came over, he had to pick a fight, over some nit-picking, meaningless, political horse hockey.
And Steve was a gentleman, he did not want to punch one of Bernie's friends right in his sanctimonious nose, even if the guy deserved it, especially not at Christmas time.
So, Steve intended to spend a nice, quiet evening at the Avengers Mansion, and return home, later.
He and Beast were having a nice, quiet conversation over a friendly game of poker in the TV room, when Tony's radioactive personal life went into meltdown.
Steve had already heard about his falling-out with the Black Widow; the result of which was a now-fading shiner.
All Tony had to say about it was that they had "ideological differences", and Steve didn't press the issue.
In his opinion, "ideological differences" probably meant that Natasha was getting tired of having to share Tony with another girlfriend, occasionally Napalm, and any number of casual conquests that Tony happened to accrue on the side.
That was the point at issue, indeed, when Bethany Cabe stalked through the TV room, in mid-rant.
"…alley cats have a better sense of morality than you do, Tony! Nobody is really sure whose side the Black Widow is on, this week, but that doesn't stop you! And, then, of course, there's your real one true love, the only woman on this Earth as cheerfully degenerate as you are, and even the Harlequin knows better than to even give you a regular day of the week! She probably doesn't want to get the crabs!"
Wrapped in a bedsheet, Tony followed her into the room.
"Bethany, please! For one thing, I only had the crabs, once, and I was a teenager. And for another, it's not as if I ever lied to you…"
"Shut up! Sometimes I wish you had! I wish you had the fucking decency to lie to me! I know this is usually reserved for women, Tony, but you are a world class slut! You know what your type is? She has to have a pussy, and a pulse! That's it! Well, I can't take it, anymore! You know what it means to be your girlfriend? It means you're a fool, and a joke, and I'm nobody's fool! So, until you think that you can at least make a tiny little effort to try something like fidelity, hell, I'd be happy with sharing you with only two or three other women rather than, oh, every girl in the world, then you're Mr. Stark, and I'm Ms. Cabe, and I'll see you at work!"
She left the room in a huff, and Tony wisely decided not to follow her.
"Always around the holidays! All year round, it's I'm OK, You're OK. I'm a Feminist, I'm Emancipated, and We're All Adults. But, no sooner does Macy's put up the Christmas windows, and they start showing Ebenezer Scrooge and It's A Wonderful Life on the Late Movie, every woman I know wants to be Donna Reed, and they expect me to be Father Knows Best. Oh well. I like spending Christmas with Pepper. At least I can count on her not to go completely insane. Is this a private poker game?"
"No, but, you do have to be dressed." Beast told him.
"Hank, I do not have the crabs."
"Yeah, but neither one of us wants to play poker with a naked man in a bedsheet. It's weird." Steve explained
"Oh. Yes. Right."
Tony went and put on some clothes, and came back and joined the game.
Things had just quieted down, and Steve was winning when Hurricane Harlequin hit.
Liv blew in with her long hair loose and frosted over with snow, tracking mud and slush from her boots. Her coat and her lumberjack shirt, as well as her The Who tee shirt and Levi's, were spattered with flecks and spots of blood. She had a maniacal look in her eye as she took a swig from the bottle of top-drawer Irish whiskey she was carrying.
"Always around the holidays. Next time I see Dick Nixon, I'm going to punch him square in the nose."
"Steve, ya gotta go put your costume on! You an' me, we gotta do the right thing for our country! My country, love it or leave it, an' change it or lose it, we gotta go kill that cocksucker Tricky Dick!" she announced.
Beast chuckled and shook his head.
Steve tried to remain calm.
"Now, Liv, I don't like that crooked SOB any more than you do. I didn't vote for him last time, I won't vote for him next time, and you know that me and Clark, and Eddie and Nick at S.H.I.E.L.D are doing everything we can to keep this country together in spite of that moron. But, you can't just go and kill him. Especially not just because he's sent Eddie on a mission and he might not be back for Christmas. That was a lousy thing to do, but it doesn't quite justify homicide. Or treason."
Tony perked right up when he heard that.
No flies on Tony.
"That sunnuvabitch did it on purpose! He's forever gettin' Eddie to do his paranoid dirty work. It'd be different if it was really a fuckin' matter of fuckin' national fuckin' security! But it ain't. If it was, you'd know about it, and Nick would know about it! It's more of his fuckin' bullshit! An' the cocksucker coulda waited till after Christmas! Well, that's it! I'm done! I'll kill the motherfucker myself!"
"I'll help you, Napalm."
Steve gave Tony an incredulous look.
"Ya will?"
"Of course I will. And we'll off that idiot Ford, while we're at it. I always wanted to be President. This is my chance. You go wait in the car, and I'll get the suit."
"Okay." Liv said.
She smiled, put her bottle down, and trotted away.
"Don't look at me like that! Both of you. I know Napalm. I've seen her this drunk, before. Not often, but the point is, I'll handle this. I'll get her keys from her, and fly her to her office at NYU, on the pretence that we need to make a plan. School's out, there's six inches of snow on the ground, the place will be deserted, so she can rant and rave and scream her black little heart out. And, I happen to know she's got a Murphy bed in her office. I'll strategically remove a few items of my clothing, give her the old bedroom eyes, casually give her a pat here and a kiss there, and pretty soon she'll forget all about killing Tricky Dick. In the morning, she'll be sober and all on her own for Christmas…and so will I. God Bless Us. Every One."
Liv had left her bottle, and Tony took a drink.
Drink number three, actually.
"Wow! That's the good stuff. She never drinks cheap booze." He said, admiringly.
"I don't know if I'm completely disgusted, or extremely impressed." Beast replied.
"Tony, I'm your best friend, and I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but, you really are some kind of asshole." Steve told him.
"Yes, but Napalm likes assholes. She's Eddie Blake's girlfriend. Would you rather have her go kill Nixon? When she's in this kind of mood…"
"I know, I know. Go. Go do that voodoo that you do so well." Steve said.
Tony practically flew out the door.
"Where did he get his Errol Flynn act, Steve?" Beast marvelled.
"From Errol Flynn. Howard Stark was a great man. He made great inventions, and great movies, but he was a rotten father. Flynn was his next door neighbour, and he sort of took charge of Tony's upbringing." Steve told him.
"That explains a lot. But I don't get it, Steve. He can have any woman he wants to. Any woman in the world. And, not that I think Liv is a disgusting old bag, but she's not his type. She's only five foot two, and she's got as many scars on her body as a Special Forces marine, and as many tattoos as a Hell's Angel. Wait. I forgot. She's a member of the Hell's Angels. And a First Sergeant with the Marines. Special Forces. Sure, she's got that little Irish pixie look, and well, a considerably big rack, but, why is he so obsessed with her?" Beast asked.
"Well, it could be that she's forever the One Who Got Away. And it might be, like Bethany said, that Liv's the only woman he's likely to meet who's as cheerfully degenerate as he is. Or it might be her great big Boeing 747 jet engine mind. It's just as big, and shiny, and crazy as his is. They're both like Dr. Frankenstein crossed with Tesla. I supposed it's probably a combination of the three." Steve opined.
Beast nodded.
"Oh well. It's my turn to deal."
IV: Tony
Hornier than a Viking helmet.
Randier than a junkyard dog during a full moon.
Hot to trot.
Ready for Freddy.
Good to go.
Hot and bothered.
Pick your cliché, any cliché, but Bethany hadn't the decency to finish what Tony was trying to start before she walked out on him, and Napalm in a wild drunken rage was so close to Napalm crazed with intemperate lust that the message that it was blood she wanted didn't quite make it to Tony's lower extremities.
An unwanted erection is never much fun, but it is considerably worse when caused by frustration.
And although it gave the phrase swelling with pride a whole new meaning when his conquests discovered that yes, on top of everything else, he could make a donkey cry, well, try finding a way to hide a 16 ounce beer can in your pants.
Now, try putting on an iron suit.
The worst part was, that in order for his plan to 1) keep Napalm from murdering the president 2) get laid and 3) feather his nest for the holidays, he needed to use a certain amount of finesse and savoir-faire, and be debonair and witty.
Feats which are very difficult to perform while sporting the equivalent of an 18-hour sleep hard-on, and the heavy, aching blue balls to match.
He was beginning to wonder if he wouldn't have to change his plans a little.
As in pull down the Murphy bed, strip, and hope that she was interested.
They managed to get in the door, and Tony locked the door and put down the briefcase in which he had the portable suit, and took off his coat.
"Whoa, camel! Hey, Tony, is that a can of Guinness in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" Napalm chuckled.
"Don't start with me, Napalm. I'm in no mood for witty repartee. I have to plan the assassination of a major political figure, and I also have to try and think of something that will make my dick go down. You're not helping."
She laughed.
"Yeah. You came back here with me, to my quiet, deserted office with a tree growing out of your crotch in an iron suit so you could discuss politics? Pull the bed down, Tony. All the sudden, I don't feel like killing anyone right now."
Liv put the cap on the bottle, put the bottle on her desk, pulled the bed down with one hand, and with the other, she reached down the front of Tony's pants.
"You know what, Tony? That Dick can wait, but I don't think this one can..."
"...So, I get my Christmas present early? Gimme some sugar, baby."
You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss.
That was when Spider Man came out of the closet.
So to speak.
"Wait a minute! Stop the presses! If you guys are going to put in a Triple X Double Feature, the hell with working late."
What an absurd situation.
"Napalm…"'
"Don't worry about it, Tony."
Liv pulled her wallet on its chain out of her back pocket, and unhooked her keys.
She took a key off the ring and gave it to Peter Parker.
"This is the key to my room at Trivelino Mac's. It's not much, but it beats this. Go. We'll talk later."
"Wow, is this awkward. Uh, thnaks for the use of the room, Liv. I'm just going to go. Uh, I'd say don't do anything I wouldn't do, but, well, you guys are professionals."
With that last wisecrack, Spider-Man made tracks.
He closed the door, and locked it with his key.
"You know, Tony, I think Pete's homeless and he's living here."
"What? That's terrible!"
"I'll have to talk to him. Now, where were we? Oh. Right. Lemme pull the bed down."
"Did he lock the door?"
"Yes."
"What about we start on the desk?"
"There's no room on the desk."
"Then I'll sweep everything onto the floor. Then we can move things to the chair, and I'm sure we'll make the bed, eventually."
Tony carried Liv across the room, swept the desk clean with one fail swoop and a series of crashes.
He unzipped Liv's Levis and pulled them and her boxers off, and as she took off her shirt and undershirt, he just unzipped the fly of his jeans and got his cock out.
"You're going to have to call that foreplay, my dear." He told her.
Liv grabbed hold of the sweater he had on in two fistfuls, tore it in half and ripped it off his body, and shoved his pants down around his ankles.
"Ditto." She replied.
"You're so dirty."
"I know."
He couldn't help it, he had to kiss her, again.
Tony woke up in the morning feeling absolutely blissful, not at all like an asshole, or a selfish prick.
Napalm didn't see him that way.
For one thing, she was still lying in bed with him, on her side; the Murphy bed was too small for them not to be cuddled together, but in the two years since they had been mad geniuses with benefits, Liv had only so recently as just before Halloween started to actually sleep beside him in bed.
He held the distinction of being only the third man in world history that she would trust enough to literally sleep with.
Pepper always told him that he was both naturally generous and naturally selfish, which he could never figure out.
Just what was it about what he'd done that made him a selfish prick?
He headed Napalm off from a sobriety-shattering binge, short-circuited her mad plans to try and assassinate the president, brought her to her own bed in her own office, made love to her, slept beside her, and now he was going to offer to spend her beloved Christmas with her, so that she wouldn't be alone and miserable and tempted to go on said binge.
So it benefitted him, too?
Was that a crime?
"You look thoughtful this morning, Tony. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I wasn't before you got on top of me, but, I am, now."
Over breakfast, at Grossmann's, Tony told Liv his sad tale of woe.
"Well, the way things go for me, there's my party onna 23rd. Onna 24th, I'm goin' to the big party you throw at the Avengers Mansion an' well if Eddie was home he'd be goin' with me. But since he ain't, yeah you an' me can go, together. On Christmas, I have dinner with my family, and later on, I got over to Paulie's place, in Bensonhurst, an' then at night, me an Eddie, we always got to the movies, downtown. Now, if he comes back, early, then I'll be goin' with him. But, before all that, and of he don't come home, yeah, I wouldn't mind a little you an' me. Whaddya do on Christmas Day?"
"Pepper and I exchange gifts, and then we go out for Chinese food."
Liv laughed.
"Sounds like fun. Well, I gotta go over to Trivelino Mac's and talk to Pete. See if I can get him out of the shit he's in. I think I'll bring him here, but him some breakfast."
"Good idea."
IV: Peter
As Liv drove him over the Brooklyn Bridge, in her old Ford panel truck, smoothly passing subcompacts floundering on the snowy pavement, she gave him the old third degree.
"Okay, Pete, what the fuck is going on? And don't bullshit me. I may not have spider sense, but you and me, we're in the same business. I'm Batman's stepdaughter and the Comedian's partner, I gotta be one hell of a detective. But, you didn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out."
"Was I that obvious?"
"To me, yeah. I suspected you was livin' in the office. For one thing, I can smell youse all over the place. You and Scott Summers bathe in Old Spice, and I know he hasn't been around. For another, there's always brown hairs on my pillow when I put the bed down to take my afternoon nap. I don't drink Pepsi, when I drink soda, I drink Coke. But there's Pepsi bottles in the trash. Not a lot of food containers, but the ones I find look like somebody's licked the wrappers. They usually come from that ratbag roach-a-rama Chinese joint up the street I wouldn't eat at if I was paid to."
"So, you got curious?"
"I got curious. I looked you up in the NYU directory. Says you live over on 110th street, in some shithole I been called to more than once. I know the super, there. I stopped by, mentioned you to him. He said you were a real nice kid, and it was a shame that dirty bastard fuck who owns the place kicked you out on your ass without giving you half a chance to pay your rent. So, I figured maybe you moved. Checked you out on S.H.I.E.L.D's database, and on Batman's. No known address. You got bounced last month and I figure you been livin' here ever since."
"Guilty as charged. Is that OK with you?"
"No, it's not! Jesus, Pete, where does your money go? Doesn't your Aunt get Social Security?"
"It's not Aunt May. You know they actually raised my rent in that dump? Then Jonah cheapened up on me. Raised his taxes, he says. And, thanks to Tricky Dick, my scholarship doesn't cover books and lab fees, anymore. Not to mention the high cost of web fluid, and I'm not even going to discuss my dry-cleaning bill. I got into some debt. Everything came due at once, and by the time I paid up everybody I owed for everything, I didn't have enough for the rent. But things aren't so bad. I've got a line on the basement flat in Mrs. Grossmann's brownstone on Bleeker and 6th. She's giving me a special rate, and I'm pretty close to getting my finances sorted out. I hope to be out of your hair by Christmas."
"Did you eat, today?"
"Are you kidding?"
"Then we'll go eat at Grossmann's, and talk to Sophie."
Liv slapped her American Express card on the counter, and Sophie Grossmann took one look at Peter without his coat on and immediately started feeding him.
Paulie, who sometimes worked the morning shift at Grossmann's, was behind the counter.
"You're a night owl, Pete. Ask Ma to hire you on for the night shift." Paulie suggested.
"That's no good. He has to sleep, sometime." Sophie reminded him.
"Maybe not for just a week. If you're stronger than you look, me and my Old Man, we got a line on a job doing some work where they're tearing down a building at the docks. This week only. It's cash under the table. Four days work, eight hours, 9 PM to 5AM. Five hundred bucks, in your hand, no questions asked, payable at the end of the job." Paulie offered.
"He's in school, Paulie." Liv reminded him.
"I used to do the occasional night job while I was in school." Paulie said.
Sophie gave a snort of disapproval.
"That's why you're not in school, anymore! You're so industrious this time of year. Why don't you just take the job, Paulie? Wait. I know. Anything's better than wages. What are you trying to do to me? Get me sued for hair in the bagels? Braid that beard, tie back that hair, put on your apron. Mind the counter, I have to talk to this young man, here."
Sophie sat down with Pete and Liv.
"Don't listen to Paulie. He's a good kid, but he's like his Uncle Eddie, a natural born bum. I would know. I've caught his act every Wednesday night since 1945. So, Mr. Parker, you're homeless, and you've been sleeping in Napalm's office, huh?"
Peter looked at his plate, ashamed.
"What's this, shame? Don't be ashamed in front of me. My Max grew up in the Bronx, with nothing, and I spent the war years in Europe living in barns and basements, when I wasn't with the resistance, before I joined up with the Invaders. I used to kill men for half-rotten grisly meat, and stale crusts of bread. To keep my boots, even. I know what it is to be homeless, broke, and desperate. Let me make you an offer. If you come in here, from four until seven, for the dinner rush, five days a week, including Saturday, and either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, you can move in right away, and we'll call you even for December. January's rent's due on the last day of the month, and if Napalm trusts you, then I can waive the security deposit. What do you say?"
"Mrs. Grossmann, I don't know what to say! Except, is that dinner rush job always available?"
"Certainly it is. Are you hearing this, Paulie? This is how a man sounds when he wants a job. Never mind. Please, Pete, Mrs. Grossmann is my mother in law! I'm Sophie and call my husband Max. The rules are, no dope, no explosions after midnight, make sure you make an agreement with the people you're sharing a bathroom with about a schedule, and don't try to move in or out between midnight and five AM. Okay?"
"Sure. Thank you, Sophie. Thank you very much."
"You're welcome. Here are your keys. There's a fold-out couch in the main room, a dresser, and a table and three chairs. The water, the heat and the gas are all on, and in the kitchenette you've got a stove and a refrigerator. So, go home and go to bed, put this in the fridge and heat it up when you wake up."
Sophie pushed a bag at him, across the table.
A big bag.
"What's this?"
"Lunch. And dinner. You're dissolving before my eyes, Peter, you need to eat!"
Sophie went back behind the counter, directing Paulie to go in the back, and make some more coffee.
"See, Pete? I am Santa's Little Helper. I got you what you wanted for Christmas. I only hope Santa returns the favour, and brings me what I want." Liv commented.
"Eddie?" Spider-Man asked.
"Eddie." The Harlequin replied.