The Not-So-Distant Future
The ancient television Clint had unearthed from somewhere and positioned atop an old sidetable between the two couches in the living room added to the rustic charm of Christmas at the farm every bit as much as the Christmas tree that sparkled beside the upright piano and the scent of Laura's spiced hot chocolate.
"But, Barton," Tony faltered upon entering the room, staring at the TV with a look of horror. "Why?"
Natasha could have recited Clint's patented kids-should-play-outside speech after all the years they'd known each other, and she was confident that she could have duplicated the hints of his technology-is-not-a-necessity-of-life manifesto, but Tony had never heard either. He looked distinctly unimpressed with both.
"Barton family wishlist," he muttered, his fingers an untrackable blur against the razor-thin screen of one of his multipurpose touchscreen devices. "New TV." He looked a little forlorn as he selected the middle cushion of the faded blue couch with checked throw cushions.
It was still a far cry from his almost pitiful demeanor a few hours before when Pepper had been called away on urgent Stark Industries business just before Christmas Eve celebrations could begin.
"He looks like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree," had been Bruce's assessment right before he talked her into inviting Tony along for their annual Christmas Eve trip to visit the Bartons. She'd resisted the idea right up until Bruce quietly reminded her that Tony had made a point of spending every Christmas alone with Pepper after the Yuletide fiasco of 2012.
He did look a little wilted, even in the warm light of the fireplace and the twinkling lights Laura and Clint wound around the posts and rafters every December. She was tempted to feel sorry for him, since he was missing his girlfriend so much on Christmas.
She slipped her phone from her pocket and took a stealthy picture to send to Pepper instead.
She snapped the picture just in time; the appearance of Cooper and Lila in the doorway perked Tony right up again. He monopolized their attention the moment they finished hugging her.
"Hey, kids," he greeted. "I've got presents for you."
The fact that they had met the infamous Tony Stark only once several years earlier was instantly overcome, and Tony quickly had a fan club waiting eagerly to see what he'd brought. As he dug in his bag for whatever gifts he had with him, Natasha reflected that he looked like a much younger, better-coiffed Santa Claus. She'd have to tell him as much later.
The kids were fiddling with what looked like mini holographic projectors that could cycle through collections of images when Natasha finally heard Bruce's steps outside the front door. He'd barely gotten their suitcases in the door before the ear-splitting cry of "Uncle Bruce!" had culminated in a running hug from Lila and a slightly more composed hug from Cooper.
Lila's deathgrip and Cooper's excited chatter about everything he'd been learning in biology class were only ended when Laura came around the corner and sent them away to get into their pajamas. The cocoa she passed Bruce's way forced him to wait on taking the bags upstairs, so he drifted into the living room instead, settling on the couch opposite Tony. Natasha claimed the seat beside him, and stole a sip from his mug instead of going to get her own.
It took Bruce several moments to feel Tony's glare.
"What did I do?" Bruce asked in confusion.
"Oh, nothing," Tony demurred as he leaned down to pick a discarded holoprojector out of the rug. "I just assumed my aversion to children was a one-sided problem. But apparently it's a two-way street." He paused to shake his head in bewilderment. "I can't even buy these kids' affection. Unbelievable."
"That's the thing, Tony," Bruce answered, surrendering his cocoa easily when Natasha reached for it again. "You can't buy kids' affection at all. There's something called quality time…"
"Don't get smart with me, Banner. Tell me your secret. The kids love you."
"Quality. Time. Ask Pepper — she'll tell you."
Tony sighed and slumped heavily against the couch. "Why do you two always gang up on me?" he asked the ceiling.
Bruce shrugged. "Maybe it's because we're always right."
Tony raised his head enough to glare half-heartedly, but Clint's appearance distracted him from replying. Laura was close behind, holding Nathaniel's tiny hand in one of her own.
"Look who's here," she said, pointing at Bruce and Natasha. He released her hand immediately, and toddled as fast as his little legs would carry him toward Bruce. Tony's glare only intensified.
Clint pressed a button and fiddled with a dial on the TV's front panel until the black and white fuzz on the screen finally resolved itself into a decent picture. He plucked a remote of some kind from beside the television and used it to point at Stark, who was staring at the ceiling again.
"No talking during the movie," he said flatly, and turned the volume up before absconding to the kitchen, remote in tow. Cooper and Lila returned, now buttoned into red and green pajamas, and sat with their backs to the fireplace, five plush stockings dangling over their heads.
"Say night-night," Laura whispered to Nathaniel as she scooped him up again. Nathaniel managed something close to "ni ni" before she carried him upstairs.
Tony barely made it through the opening credits of Frosty the Snowman before he moved to sit beside Bruce and whispered too loudly, "This movie was boring when I was a kid."
Clint cleared his throat pointedly from the kitchen and Tony subsided into disgruntled silence.
"Oh thank God," he muttered when the end credits finally began some thirty minutes later. "So is this the part where we get to open presents?"
"Presents are tomorrow," Lila informed him helpfully. "We have cookies and movies tonight."
"Not too many cookies," said Laura, emerging from the kitchen with a plate in hand. "It's almost bedtime."
Tony joined the kids' chorus of groaning. "Bedtime?" he protested, as though he, too, was bound to abide by bedtime rules. "But The Nightmare Before Christmas is coming on!" He pointed at the title listed on the television screen beside the words up next.
When Cooper and Lila had no reaction, Tony's brow contracted. "Haven't you kids seen that movie?"
"No," answered Lila, standing up to pick through the cookie selection Laura was holding out for her. "Is that the one with the skeleton guy?"
"The skeleton guy?" Tony repeated in disbelief. He twisted around to shake his head at Clint sitting at the kitchen table behind them all. "And I thought you were a good father."
Clint didn't even look up from the pile of plastic toy bits he was assembling for Nathaniel.
"That's it," Tony declared, his tone approaching a righteous fury. "We're watching it. Kids, take a seat. Clearly someone needs to take control of your Christmas movie experience before you end up as outcasts." He stood up, took two steps toward the opposite couch where Cooper and Lila had settled, cookies in hand and slightly confused looks on their faces. He suddenly spun back and held out a hand toward Bruce. "I almost forgot: your present. Use it wisely."
With those cryptic words and an even more cryptic smile, Tony dropped something small into Bruce's hand and settled himself between Cooper and Lila on the couch. Bruce stared at the tiny object, but the movie was starting, so he pocketed it before Natasha could get a good look.
"Okay, who's sharing a cookie with me?" Tony asked, looking expectantly between the two kids on either side of him.
Cooper, his mouth full, just held up his empty hands and shrugged.
"Really?" Tony said reproachfully, and turned to Lila instead. "How about you?"
She studied him in thoughtful silence for a moment. "Alright," she said with a nod. "You can have the Iron Man cookie."
Tony's eyes had drifted to the television screen, but her words ripped his gaze from the opening titles. "The what now?" he asked.
Lila held up a round sugar cookie with blue icing and dark piping that was distinctly reminiscent of a glowing arc reactor. Tony stared.
"This," he said gravely, "is a work of art. I want more. Are there more?" He looked around and finally spotted Laura. "Mrs. Hawkeye. Are there more of these gorgeous cookies?"
"There are," she said, one corner of her lips pulling into a smile. "The kids helped me make them. And Natasha helped me find the decorating templates."
"Pinterest," Natasha shrugged when Tony and Bruce stared at her in disbelief.
"Templates?" Bruce asked. "There are more than one?"
Natasha nodded. "I improvised the Hulk design. The original template was a radiation symbol. I thought you deserved a little more style."
Bruce raised his eyebrows, but said nothing as Laura handed him the plate. A pile of cookies frosted with green fists were mixed with cookies with red hourglasses, patriotic shields, silver hammers, and chocolate arrows. Bruce's lips twitched as he selected a sugar cookie with a red hourglass and took a bite.
"These are delicious," he told Laura. Natasha plucked a green fist from the plate and passed them to Tony. Lila took an hourglass cookie and Cooper took a hammer and a fist.
"No one wants the Hawkeye cookies," Natasha said loudly, grinning when Clint's chair scraped the floor in a way that sounded irate.
"Don't worry, Barton," called Tony. "If no one else will eat you, I will." True to his word, he snatched an arrow cookie from the plate and ate it in two bites. His swallow was thoughtful. "My cookie was better," he declared, and turned his attention back to the movie.
Natasha smirked at Clint's disgusted sigh behind her. They lapsed into silence for a while, broken only by Tony's occasional exclamations of "I love this song!" Cooper looked fascinated; Lila looked slightly frightened, pulling her knees up to her chest when the Oogie Boogie Man appeared. Tony glanced her way.
"The Avengers could totally take down the Oogie Boogie Man," he said, matter-of-fact. "We deal with weird magic all the time." She finally smiled and leaned against his arm just slightly as the movie went on. Tony's grin was brighter than all the Christmas lights in the farmhouse combined.
Natasha leaned closer to Bruce as Tony watched Jack's mournful Christmas Eve song with rapt attention.
"I think he relates to Jack on some weird level," she whispered. Bruce gave her a look that clearly expressed his reluctance to ever psychoanalyze Tony Stark. Natasha just smirked at him. "So what did he give you?"
Bruce blinked, finally remembering the mysterious gift. He slid it from his pocket, studying it in the light of the television. It was a small cylinder, about three inches long, flattened on one side. There was a single red button on the end. The wariness she instantly felt was mirrored in Bruce's eyes.
He wouldn't have given them anything dangerous for Christmas, she assured herself, plucking the black cylinder from Bruce's palm to study it from every angle. Against her better judgment, she pressed the button.
A paper-thin panel slid away on the rounded side and a beam of light shot out of the opening, fanning out until it solidified into a hologram floating near the ceiling. The three-dimensional image was a bundle of green leaves and white berries tied with a red ribbon.
Mistletoe.
"Well, are you going to use it this time?" Tony asked without looking away from the TV.
"Are we?" Natasha asked, turning toward Bruce, but he was already leaning in to kiss her. It was a soft kiss, too short to be really satisfying, but there were two children — or three, depending on how you counted — on the couch opposite them, so it was all she could hope for given the circumstances. Bruce pulled away when three voices joined together in a chorus of ewwww. Tony's voice was by far the loudest.
Natasha left the holographic mistletoe hovering overhead long enough to illuminate her scariest smile when she directed it at Tony. When he was properly cowed, she pressed the red button again and handed the projector back to Bruce, who slid it into his pocket. He draped an arm around her shoulders and she tucked herself into his side. They watched Jack defeat the Oogie Boogie Man and save Santa in silence.
"Now," said Tony as the credits rolled. "Wasn't that the greatest Christmas movie you've ever seen?" He was satisfied with Cooper's enthusiastic nod, but held up a finger when Lila looked uncertain. "The correct answer is 'yes.'"
She giggled. "Yes, Mr. Stark," she answered politely. Tony nearly choked.
"Mr. Stark?" he asked in horror, making a face like a man who'd just bitten into something rotten. "My father was Mr. Stark. No, not even Dad, my grandfather was Mr. Stark. You can call me Tony. Uncle Tony, if you want." He shrugged benevolently.
"Uncle?" Lila asked in confusion. "But you're not with Aunt Nat…"
"That's because if I'd ever tried to make a move, she would have thrown me out a window and I would have died," Tony explained seriously. "Thankfully Bruce isn't the kind of guy that gets thrown out of windows."
Lila looked confused, but she nodded. Clint and Laura reappeared in the living room, carrying Nathaniel's plastic playset between them, and stopped to arrange it under the Christmas tree.
"Can we come downstairs and peek under the tree tonight?" Lila asked, almost bouncing on her toes in excitement as she stood.
"We'll all get up together tomorrow morning," Laura answered her gently.
"Bedtime," said Clint. "Tell everyone goodnight." Cooper and Lila walked so slowly that Natasha was actually impressed, but eventually their footsteps faded as they climbed the stairs.
"Don't forget the cookies for Santa!" Lila called down.
"I won't," Laura answered. She laid out a handful of cookies beside the Christmas tree. "Feel free to eat them if you want," she told Tony, who was eyeing them speculatively.
"I might," he conceded, but he was off the couch in a flash, fiddling with the television's numerous silver knobs set into a faux wood face and muttering something about the Stone Age. Snatches of dialogue were punctuated with loud bursts of white noise as he flipped channels.
"You have an engagement, and so have I…" The line faded as Tony turned the knob.
"Wait," Bruce and Natasha said together. "Go back," she instructed, realizing after a moment that Bruce wasn't going to tell Tony what to do since he was so busy smiling at her like an idiot.
Tony sighed heavily. "You know I hate it when you do weird couple stuff," he muttered in a wounded tone. "Stop saying things at the same time."
They traded a glance that lasted a fraction of a second. "Okay," they said together.
Tony's answering grimace became more pronounced when he realized that the movie he'd flipped back to was in black and white.
"Barton," he called as Clint stepped back through the doorway. "Tell me you have beer."
"I thought you'd never ask," Clint said flatly, and Tony trailed behind him to the refrigerator.
Natasha wrapped both her arms loosely around Bruce as Kralik finally confessed his identity to Klara.
"Are you disappointed?" Kralik asked. An uncertain moment passed as Klara lifted a shaking hand to her brow.
"Psychologically, I'm very confused," she said, staring away from Kralik. Her face froze as a blue pause icon appeared in the corner of the television screen.
"You know," came Clint's voice from behind the waist-high countertop that divided the kitchen from the living room. "That's how I feel when I look at Nat and Banner."
"You're not going to be feeling anything below the neck if you don't give me that remote," Natasha retorted. Clint chuckled, but leaned over to surrender it.
Tony's laugh was sharp, but it terminated in indignation. "You've had a remote this whole time?"
"I may not be a tech addict," Clint answered placidly, "But I do have a DVR."
Natasha ignored them and pressed play. The ending was the best part.
"But personally," Klara continued at last, the tightness in her eyes sliding away into something bright and hopeful. "I don't feel bad at all."
Bruce leaned in close enough to whisper, "Now that's how I feel when I look at us."
Natasha didn't even try to stop her smirk. "Cheesy," she accused fondly.
"Well," Bruce defended with a grin. "It is Christmas."
In the twinkle of the Christmas lights onscreen, Klara and Kralik kissed at last.