Bruce was eating a cupcake iced with red and white stripes with a peppermint Star Brite on top as the credits rolled. He stared at the scene thoughtfully, his eyebrows drawn together.
"So… it was a dream?" he asked.
"No, Bruce, she really went to a land of dancing sugar plums after killing a mouse king with her shoe," Clint said sarcastically, then paused. "What the hell is a sugar plum, anyway?"
"Candy," Steve said.
"Yeah, but are we talking an actual plum dipped in sugar or is it like plum pudding where there's no plums and they should be sued for false advertising?" Clint asked.
"I think it's just sort of a generic, regular sugar candy," Bruce said.
"And these are things kids get visions of dancing in their heads on Christmas Eve?" Clint said, look disappointed. "They could at least get nice dreams about cartwheeling peanut butter cups or something."
"Well, whatever they are, this was Christmassy and festive," Bruce said, smiling at Natasha. "I liked it."
"No you didn't," Tony said. "Men do not like ballet. It is an unwritten rule of the universe. We are dragged to ballets against our will by our womenfolk, sit politely, fall asleep at some point in the second act, wake up for the curtain call, applaud, and then go home to receive our mandatory nookie in return for pretending to enjoy an evening of so-called high culture."
Pepper threw a cushion at him, which hit him square in the face.
"I would not speak for all of the masculine gender in that regard," Thor said, picking the last bits off a turkey wing. "I quite enjoyed this. It was fanciful and the music was charming. Also, the dancers were remarkably strong. I believe many of them would do admirably if they were pitted in a battle against our Einherjar."
"For once, my brother and I are in agreement," Loki said, looking a little perturbed.
"A Christmas miracle if ever there was one," Clint said. "And now I can't get the image of a bunch of Vikings squaring off against ballerinas in pink tutus while 'Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy' plays in the background. I grant you, though, a few solid pirouettes and there could be some horned helmets flying."
"How do you even know what a pirouette is?" Tony asked, looking aghast.
"I have a daughter, Tony," Clint said
"Okay, you get a pass then," he said. "But come on, you really think a bunch of girls and guys in skin-tight leotards running around in silly looking shoes could be warriors?"
"Yes," Natasha said much too calmly and fixing him with one of her more unnerving stares.
"Killer ballerinas? Seriously?" Tony said.
"You're looking at one," she reminded him, sipping her hot chocolate primly.
"Oh. Right," he said. "Pepper, why do you let me do that?"
"Because I enjoy watching you make an idiot out of yourself," Pepper said, quietly clinking her festive Santa mug with Natasha's.
"Okay, fine, so they're in great shape," Tony said, "which is probably why you couldn't take your eyes off Baryshnikov and those tights."
"Guilty as charged," Natasha said with a nonchalant shrug. "I'm not blind."
"Kirkland was pretty," Steve said, wiping chocolate chip cookie crumbs off his shirt. "Very graceful."
"Okay, fine, so there was that," Tony admitted. "I've dated a few dancers, so I can see your point there."
"I don't think the employees of a Vegas strip club, lovely though they may be, are quite the same thing," Loki said, taking a bite out of a piece of green and yellow ribbon candy. "This was meant to be significantly less prurient."
"Right, like you weren't ogling everybody in this thing," Tony said. "I just couldn't figure out if you were more into Clara or the prince."
"Neither could I," Loki said, giving him a grin and wiggling his eyebrows. "Nothing wrong with keeping one's options open."
Steve turned a little pink but just took another sip of his eggnog.
"So, going back to Bruce's original question, the trip to the magical Kingdom of Diabetes was a dream, right?" Clint asked.
"In the book, it's not," Natasha said. "A few years later Godfather Drosselmeyer shows up again with the prince, who asks for Marie's hand in marriage, and they live happily ever after."
"I thought her name was Clara," Bruce said.
"It is," she said, "but in Hoffman's novella the main character is Marie."
"Nobody talks in the thing anyway, so who cares what her name is," Tony said. "It could be John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt and it wouldn't make any difference."
"It'd be really weird if that also happened to be the prince's name, too," Clint said.
"You do realize that song is going to be stuck in my head from now until New Year's, right?" Pepper said, glaring at both of them.
"But in the original book they really go off to live with a bunch of sentient candy?" Tony said.
"Basically, yes," Natasha said.
"What was Hoffman on?" Tony asked.
"Alcohol and anti-syphilis medication," she said.
"Well, that'll do it," Tony said.
"Suddenly the M&M commercials seem a lot more like cannibalism," Bruce said.
"Whatever," Tony said, stretching. "Sounds like the nutcracker and whatever her name is are both going to wind up getting fat. What did you think, Peter?"
"Oh, geez, I forgot he was even here," Clint said.
It wasn't hard to see why. He was sprawled over three chairs in the back row of the room, out like a light, a smear of peppermint frosting on his cheek.
"See? Chip off the old block," Tony said proudly.