"Want any extra hands?" Rogue offered as she slipped into the kitchen, her hair already tied back to keep it from getting anywhere near the food. "Oh, Ah see you've already got some."
"Rogue, this is my mother, Paris Miller," Darcy introduced with a smile. "Mama, this is Dad's new girlfriend, Rogue."
"I road-tripped over night, got here about ten minutes ago," Paris explained easily. Then... "What kind of a name is Rogue?" she asked with a smile.
"Logan asked me the same thing when we met," Rogue admitted ruefully. "In exactly that tone. It's actually Marie, but Ah don't let many people call me that."
"Fair enough," Paris acceded, and took that as an unspoken implication that she wouldn't be one of the people with permission. "So, want some funny stories about James? I've got some good ones from when Victor dragged him back to me just after he lost his memory."
"You... don't mind that Ah'm dating the father of your child?" Rogue asked.
"He was a fun month in Vancouver, very understanding of my desire to be act in a way completely contrary to all of my familial expectations and wants," Paris declared with a fond smile. "When I tracked him down a couple of months later, pregnant, he was also very understanding about the fact that I never, ever wanted to get married, but I did want a family – so I was keeping the kid no matter what he, or anybody else for that matter, said or chose to do."
"Much to the general shock and horror of your grandfather in particular, according to the story," Darcy quipped.
"'Greek girls get married to nice Greek boys!'" Paris exclaimed in a deeper voice and thicker accent, clearly taking off the spoken of relation. "'They do not get pregnant and stay unmarried!' But for all that he was easy-come, easy-go, James was a good father for Darcy whenever he was around."
"Y'all are Greek?" Rogue enquired, curious. "Ah was raised in Mississippi, so Ah know more about crawfish and gumbo and 'gator for feastin' with."
"We can swap recipes as well as stories," Paris offered happily.
"And phone numbers too, no doubt," Darcy joined in.
"I do not suppose that I would be able to join in this trade agreement?" a voice with yet another different accent asked tentatively. "Perhaps for traditional Sokovian dishes?"
Darcy beamed at Wanda, dressed in a slightly more festive red than was her usual, and happily waved the normally somewhat shy girl into the kitchen.
"Absolutely," Paris agreed eagerly.
"What was it like?" Rogue asked as Darcy passed her a bucket of potatoes, a peeler, an empty bucket, and a large pot. "Gettin' older while Logan..." Rogue trailed off as she tried to find a way to express the sentiment delicately.
"Didn't?" Paris finished bluntly with a raised eyebrow. "Him and Victor both, mind you, because they were both involved in Darcy's life. It wasn't too strange at first. I was young, he was mature, but he looked that kind of age where you're not sure if he's in his late twenties or early fifties. Victor too, when I eventually met him – which, I gotta say, is a whole story of its own."
Natasha clearly had super-spy senses that went off when there was a possibility of getting information, because she showed up about then too, and with a comment about Russian recipes, dirt on whoever the heck they wanted, and a referral to a really good custom lingerie place, let herself be put to the task of shredding cabbage beside Wanda, who was grating carrots for same coleslaw that the cabbage would go into.
~oOo~
The delicious smells of a Christmas feast wafted out of the kitchen, enticing everybody who had been having cereal and/or toast in the breakfast area.
"Damn," Wade complained. "I wanted to do presents before I left. We're not getting Darcy out of the kitchen with a crowbar until everything's ready."
"Have you tried maybe asking nicely instead?" Bucky suggested as he dusted the crumbs off his fingers from his tenth slice of toast and got up from his seat.
"Buck, I know you've been on and off ice for the last seventy years, mind-wipes and all that shit – and I sympathise – but going into the kitchen at all while my Baby Girl is cookin' is not a good idea," Logan warned carefully. According to both Victor and Steve, the Howling Commandos had worked with the brothers' unit in WW2 – Darcy's game of 'twenty questions' the night before, after the movie, had been generally informative. Logan and Bucky had kind-of bonded over not being able to actually remember that. Not well or clearly, anyway.
"Not unless you're summoned, anyway, and then you do what you're asked and get out as quick as you can," Victor agreed as he raised his coffee cup for a sip.
"Victor! James!"
Logan's eyes widened, and Victor barely kept the coffee in his mouth rather than spraying it everywhere.
"Oh shit," Logan swore softly.
"Who -?" Tony started to ask.
Paris stepped out of the kitchen then, hair tied up, apron clean except for where she'd clearly wiped her hands on the front, and blue eyes just like Darcy's glinting with the delight of one who has fresh blackmail.
"The turkeys, all six of them, have been stuffed and are ready to go into the ovens. As are the two Christmas hams, and I need someone to lift the venison onto the rotisserie," Paris informed the room at large. "James, Victor, I expect your muscles to be in the kitchen forthwith, and anybody else who thinks they can also speed up the process of getting heavy meat to where it needs to be to cook. Then we'll just need a few minutes to clean up, and then, Wade Wilson, we can do presents. Don't think I can't see you wiggling with impatience over there young man."
"Yes Aunt Paris," Wade said as his spine snapped straight and one hand shot up in a text-book salute. Completely not-ironic or -sarcastic.
Paris nodded, satisfied, raised her eyebrow at Logan and Victor, and when they stood, she turned and led them to the kitchen. Bucky, having already stood, fell in with them.
"Who was that?" Tony asked carefully once the door was shut between the kitchen and the breakfast area again.
"Baby Girl didn't pop out of Logan whole," Wade pointed out, relaxing out of the almost-military pose (one wasn't supposed to sit while saluting, after all). "Paris Miller, daughter of Toula and Ian Miller, mother of Darcy Lewis."
"Darcy's mother!" Tony yelped. Then blinked. "Hang on, where'd the 'Lewis' come from?"
"As I understand it, because her mother was Paris Miller, Wolverine was James Logan Howlett, Sabertooth was Victor Creed, and then there was me, Cousin Wade Wilson, Baby Girl decided she should have a different last name too. Aunt Paris and Great-Uncle Jimmy were both cool with it, so they got her the name change," Wade explained with a shrug.
"So why did Logan panic when his baby-momma showed up?" Rhodey asked.
"Think about it man," Sam said, a slightly overwhelmed smile on his face. "His daughter and his baby-momma have both been in the kitchen all morning, and so has his current girlfriend."
Tony winced at the picture that painted.
"So has Natasha," Clint threw in as he added creamer to his coffee, "and Wanda."
"I am surprised, but I am suddenly, actually grateful that Pepper has to be in Washington for Christmas," Tony offered. "That kind of feminine allegiance is terrifying."
"Damn right it is," Jane agreed, her tone as proud as it was tired, as she stumbled into the breakfast area on Thor's arm. "What are we talking about?"
"Darcy's mother making friends with Rogue, her dad's current girlfriend," Scott supplied, and – being the one nearest the toaster, dropped in a couple of pop-tarts for the astrophysicist.
"Huh, I haven't ever met Darcy's mother," Jane realised blearily even as she waved her thanks at the man. "We've talked on the phone a couple of times, but we haven't ever actually met."
"Ma tells occasional horror stories of how her mother's family followed her everywhere when she was growing up," Darcy said as she appeared, free of any apron, at the head of the line of people leaving the kitchen.
"So I don't," Paris finished. "But I do come when she calls, and she'd asked last week if I wanted to get out of a Greek Christmas and help cook for a super-hero one instead."
"Best mother ever, seriously," Darcy avowed. "Alright, to the tree! Where presents have been delivered by the other man in red," she added as she smirked at Wade.
"Woohoo!" Wade whooped, and dashed off.
"He's such a child, I swear," Paris said as she shook her head, smiling after him. "He makes it so easy to forget he inherited your temper, Victor."
"That's why he does it, I think. That, or to annoy me," Victor said with a chuckle.
"Pretty sure it's actually because he was dropped on his head before you found him and took him in, Uncle Grumpy Cat," Darcy offered with a grin of her own.
"Also distinctly possible," Victor agreed with a completely un-ironic roll of his eyes.