I wrote this in a stroke of genius (madness) at around one in the morning and posted it a few hours later on Christmas Eve. And, yes, I did use the first and last lines from The Night Before Christmas and tweak them to fit my purposes.

This one was inspired by the song "I Am Santa Claus" by Bob Rivers, which is my new favorite Christmas song.


'Twas the day before Christmas and in Avengers Tower, Steve had an idea that caused Tony to glower.

"Come on, Tony, think of the children!"

Clint shot a marshmallow at him with a rubber band. "Yeah, Stark. Think of the children."

"Absolutely not," Tony said. "Bruce, back me up here."

"Well," Bruce said, "it is a nice idea."

Tony rolled his eyes. "It's a disaster waiting to happen, that's what it is. Does Coulson know you want to do this?"

"I approved it," Coulson said, appearing of nowhere.

"You want to surround me with impressionable children? You don't even trust me with my robots, and I built them."

"In our defense, you accidentally made the microwave radioactive once," Steve said. "We ate cold pizza for weeks after that."

Tony pointed at him with his fork. "That was not my fault. Jarvis ordered the wrong part and I ended up with uranium, which is excessive, Steve, and we do not need that. I do not need uranium."

"Well there goes your Christmas present," Bruce said sarcastically.

"Who is this Santa Claus?" Thor asked, changing the subject in that special way only he knew how to do. "A mighty warrior, perhaps?"

"Hold on, big guy," Natasha said. She grabbed the nearest tablet — because seriously, this was Tony's tower, the damn things were everywhere — and pulled up a Google image search of Santa Claus.

"Surely you jest! The Man of Iron is nothing like this!"

"There we go, Thor's on my side!" Tony said. "Up high." Thor gave him a high five and Tony winced, shaking his arm out. "Okay, that was a horrible idea."

"So you'll do it?" Steve gave him his best puppy dog expression.

"Gah, fine!"

"Did you just say 'gah?'" Clint said.

Coulson smacked him.


The children burst into applause as the music kicked in and Tony flew into the orphanage, wearing a Santa suit, complete with beard, over the armor. "Merry Christmas!" he said.

"Merry Christmas, Iron Man!" the kids chorused.

"Have you all been good this year?"

"Yes!"

Tony smiled to himself. "In that case, the Elf-vengers and I have some presents for you!" He gestured off to the side where the rest of the Avengers, dressed as elves, were carrying in bags of gifts.

"I hate you," said Coulson, who was dressed as Rudolph.

"Think of the children, Agent," he said mockingly. Then louder, "Kids, meet Coulson the Red Nosed SHIELD Agent!"

"Hi, Coulson!" the kids said.

Tony handed a camera to one of the orphanage workers. "Do you think you could take pictures of everything for me? It would mean a lot." A lot of blackmail material, anyway.

"Of course," she said, giving him a warm smile.

"Thanks so much," he said. He went back over to the large chair that had been set up and sat down. "Who's first?" he asked the children.

Over the next hour, the kids came up and sat on his (well-padded) lap, telling him their Christmas wishes before one of the other Avengers gave him or her a couple of presents. If Tony was honest with himself like he so rarely was, he almost cried a few times. He was just allergic to the sadness of children.

After all the presents were gone, the Avengers went back to the tower for some cocoa.

"That wasn't so bad, was it, Tony?" Steve asked.

Tony sipped his cocoa and reflected on the afternoon. "No, Steve, I guess it wasn't. The kids seemed to like the Elf-vengers."

Then Clint started throwing marshmallows at him and he tried to hide behind the couch.

And he heard Steve exclaim as he dove out of sight, "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night."


Now we're all caught up to what's posted on AO3, so the updates won't come as often. It'll be like Texting and Scones if you read that. Updates come when I finish the chapters.