Title: Delights Of December
Author: Sgt. Pepperony
Fandom: Avengers (MCU)
Rating: T because of discussions of breast sizes (probably one of the weirdest conversations I have ever written by the way; I swear I was not drunk. Okay, I might have been drinking at the time but like one bottle of cider.)
Pairings: Tony/Pepper, Steve/Wanda, Thor/Jane
Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers, characters, just the kids except Luna. Property of Marvel and Disney. Do not own the songs as they belong to the writers and record companies. Image is owned by me.

Chapter One

Rocking around the Christmas tree,
Have a happy holiday.
Everyone's dancing merrily,
in a new old fashioned way.

Brenda Lee – Rocking Around the Christmas Tree

Virginia Potts was not pleased.

Her plan on the Saturday before Christmas had been to do some last minute Christmas shopping with Wanda Maximoff. However with Wanda's husband Steve Rogers being busy trying to sort out some S.H.I.E.L.D related drama, Tony had wrangled Pepper into helping him get a tree, mainly to test out some new features on the hand of Iron Man. Wanda had insisted that it was fine as she needed to go to the doctors anyway. However, rather than going to a lot to buy their Christmas tree, Tony had drove her out to the middle of a forest to cut down a real fir tree, while it was snowing heavily and it was absolutely freezing.

"This has to be the dumbest idea you have come up with. Only I think this time it is illegal," Pepper exclaimed, dragging her boot covered feet through the blanket of snow. They had only been out of the car for five minutes and her nose was already redder than her hair.

"Come on Pep, this is how the people in the 1800s did it."

"I doubt they would have had the arm for the Iron Man Mark Two Billion on their sleeves. Why could you not have used an axe like a normal person? Now the living room is going to smell of burning wood."

"Considering the amount of candles and floral bath products you use in our bathroom, I am surprised my nose has not disintegrated yet."

"Tony, I booked a day off to try to get the Christmas shopping done. I still have not gotten anything for Bruce or even my mother."

"Why don't you get them a jumper? Like you always do."

"Why could we not gone to a Christmas tree lot? There are genuine trees there as well."

"I read somewhere about pesticides being used. I don't want Wanda being exposed to it. Not with the baby."

"She's only three weeks away from her due date, I think it is only damaging in the early stages and with long term exposure."

"I'm not taking the risk, especially now they are living with us. It's bad enough the kid has a mother with psionic abilities, and a father who has been injected with radiation. Either that baby is going to be amazingly powerful or disabled."

"Depends whose chromosomes are the more dominant I suppose. Anyway, can we just cut a tree down already?"

"Not until we find the perfect tree."

"Fine, I'm going back to the car," Pepper said turning around and walking back in the opposite direction.

"Of course you are Pep." Tony kept moving forwards until he found a big enough tree with enough space for it to fall without it landing on the other trees. "Great, let's just get the…" Tony turned around and noticed that Pepper had disappeared, and she was holding the case with the Iron Man sleeve in. "Pep? Pep? Pepper? Honey?" Not hearing a response, Tony grabbed his phone from his pocket, "Damn it no signal. How could this phone not have a signal? I practically invented this phone to have a signal even in the Himalayas."

Moving around with the phone in the air, Tony decided to climb one of the trees to see if he could get a bar on his phone. It was not until he got to the fifth branch up that he managed to get at least two bars. "Ah brilliant," Tony stated dialling Pepper's number.

"Yes Tony," she answered.

"Slight problem, I think you have the case with the hand inside."

"No I don't," Pepper said looking in the car seat beside her, where the case was. "Okay, maybe I do."

"Great can you bring it here?"

"Tony, I do not know where you are in the forest, I could end up getting lost."

"Okay, maybe I can use the prehensile technology to draw it to where I am."

"Can it go that far?"

"It's gone from Tennessee to Florida before. Three miles is no problem."

"Okay, let me get out of the car."

"Let me get off this tree."

"Why are you in a tree?"

"Signal boost."

Pepper grabbed the case and the car key and left the warmth of the car, "Okay Tony are you ready?"

"Not quite I have my foot stuck."

"Oh for goodness sakes," she murmured.

"Hold on, if I just get my boot off – whoa!" Pepper heard the crunch of snow and some branches snapping.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I think the coat I am wearing broke the fall. I'm going to need some help getting the tree back to the car though."

"I'm certain that the robotic sleigh you built last year is strong enough for the tree." Pepper used the code on the case to open it, "Okay, I'm unleashing the hand." Tony raised his hand and as soon as Pepper opened the case, the hand flew out of the case. "It's coming."

It took the best part of half an hour for Tony to return. The sleigh broke down due to the weight of the tree a good mile into the trip back to the car. He had to use the blasters on the hand to get somehow as far as he could but the blasters gave out pretty quickly. In the end he pushed it all the way back.

"Thanks for the help Pep." Pepper just smiled at him from inside the car. "Can I at least get some strapping it to the top of the car?"

-o-

Eventually, though not without some hitches, they arrived back at the Tower in one piece. However the elevator was too small to get the tree inside so they had to carry it all the way to the lounge on the top floor.

"Why did we design this place to be about ninety floors?" asked Pepper who was on the verge of collapsing as soon as she got to the top floor with the lounge.

"I don't know. It might have something to do with the different departments of Stark Industry and the fact we decided to make about twenty floors just for the Avengers."

"Well considering that is only really Wanda and Steve that live with us permanently –."

"Temporarily. They are only here until they buy a house."

"Okay, for the foreseeable future, we could just utilise one floor as a training base and then three can be guest rooms."

"What about the other floors?"

"I don't know. An entertainment complex perhaps." The couple entered the lounge where they carried the tree all the way to the window by the balcony.

"Okay, let's get that tree into the holder and then you can leave me to decorate."

"Don't you want my help?"

"You've had a rough day."

"Fine. I'll just watch the rest of this film." Tony sat down on the other couch. Fifteen minutes later, he was completely passed out, leaving Pepper to grab the box of Christmas decorations out of storage.

"Okay, what colour scheme are we going for this year? Red and white or red and gold?" she asked herself.

"It depends if you want the lounge to look like a candy cane or an Iron Man suit," JARVIS answered.

"I'm thinking candy cane."

"A good choice. Between you and me, we don't need any more gold and red in this tower." Pepper smiled and stated untangling the white lights.

-o-

Four hours later, Tony had woken up and looked at the now decorated lounge. Pepper had covered the tree with the lights and a mixture of white and red ornaments. The room had lights draped around the large mirror, the smell of pine, balsam, and holly berry coming from the Yankee Candle® Christmas Wreath, a decoration on the fireplace, and a mistletoe star handing from the curtain pole.

"Oh dear god. Have I entered the lounge of candy canes?"

"Sir, I did help Ms Potts chose the colour scheme," JARVIS explained.

"Did you not think to consult me?"

"Sir, I do recall the last time I asked for your input on decorating Christmas trees, you said that I should keep my mouth shut, though it was more colourfully articulated?"

"When was that?"

"About two weeks ago."

"This is a great day. I fall out of a tree, I end up pushing a sleigh three miles, I wake up in Santa's village of the damned, and to top it off, my A.I. is sassing me off."

"To be honest, when have I not sassed you off?"

"Keep pushing me JARVIS and I'll pour milk onto your wires and stuff cookies into your core processor."

"Tony, be nice," Pepper chastised coming into the room.

"He started it."

"Well, instead of stuffing cookies into JARVIS's core processer, can you put your grandmother's angel on top of the tree?"

"Pepper, surely in your heels you could reach it by yourself." Pepper raised one eyebrow and Tony signed getting off the couch. He grabbed the angel from the box and climbed the step ladder, carefully placing it on top of the tree. "That okay?"

"Yes, it looks perfect." Tony climbed down from the ladder and stood by Pepper.

"Okay, I will admit that is not awful," Tony said. "Though I would have preferred the red and gold."

"I think there is enough red and gold in this tower," Pepper responded. Tony glared. Pepper gave Tony a kiss on the lips, "What was that for?"

"It's Christmas."

"Next year we are getting one from the lot. I only wanted to test of the Iron Hand could cut a tree down. Not so good on getting it back to the car."

"Let's just hope the police do not find out."

"So what do you think? Sixty forty?"

"Would you settle for twelve?" Pepper raised her eyebrow. "Sixty forty is good."