Once Aunt May had heard that Katya was not only coming for Christmas, but her first Christmas ever, there was no stopping her. She and Peter went to Home Depot- where the associates were beginning to learn his name- to take extra time in picking the plumpest, biggest tree they could fit into the apartment, and then came home immediately to bedazzle it with every ornament they owned. This included, to Peter's slight dismay, the ones he'd made in school as a child, including macaroni hearts and paper snowflakes. But it filled the branches, and soon the tree was as warm and inviting as Peter had ever seen it. May had even gone out and purchased these cardinal clip ornaments, so every empty space was filled with a scarlet bird. Katya would love that.

And then came the cookies.

Half of the fun of Christmas cookies was making them, so Peter asked Mr. Stark if Katya could come over to do so.

"As long as she doesn't move her torso too much, I think she'll be all right," was his answer.

So that's how Peter found himself with his Aunt and his girlfriend- his Myshka- in the kitchen, pouring flour into a measuring cup and failing spectacularly.

"Why don't you just scoop it?" Katya asked, laughing, as Peter struggled to clean up the excess from the counter and the floor. He felt like an idiot.

"Because I didn't think of that."

They made sugar cookies and gingerbread, which Katya said tasted almost exactly like something called pryaniki, and ate a good portion of the dough before they could roll it out. Aunt May just laughed and let the two do what they wanted, as she tried her best to direct them from the recipe on her phone.

Katya turned out to be weirdly good at baking. "It's just chemistry." Once he thought of it like that, Peter discovered he was weirdly good at it, too. Once one learned the chemical properties behind egg as a binding agent and baking soda-not baking powder, which he soon learned were not the same thing- to keep the cookie together.

And then came the decorating.

Katya kept making egg-shaped ovals, which neither Peter nor Aunt May understood but let go, until they came out. Katya seemed dismayed that they'd slightly spread out in baking, but covered it well. "Do you have red and blue icing?"

Peter'd personally gone with Aunt May to the grocery store that morning so he knew the answer, but Aunt May just smiled benevolently and said "Yeah, here." She smirked, as if she knew something they didn't.

But it became apparent what Aunt May had been alluding to once Katya had started decorating. Her ovals became Spiderman faces, and as she perfected the webbing details with a small black icing tube she said "Don't worry, this won't be you until like twenty five years from now, once you're embittered and have developed a beer gut."

"Hey!" Peter cried good naturedly, looking up from his own (admittedly overweight) reindeer. "'I'm not getting a beer gut."

"Well why else would they have spread so much?" Katya snickered, perfecting the webbing on the one she was working on. "Don't worry, I'll still love you just the same."

Peter's ears tinged pink.

Ya tebya lyublyu.

Katya had to go back to the compound after for some more tests and medication, but not before Aunt May procured her insistence that she come early the next morning for presents and to help her cook Christmas dinner, another thing Katya seemed surprisingly excited about. She explained, as Aunt May and Peter drove her back upstate, that she'd taken up cooking since moving in with Mr. Stark ("He can cook scrambled egg and egg stir fry but that's about it.") and that it was both an art and a science, two things she was growing a fondness for. Peter smiled as she and Aunt May chattered about what they were going to make.

"Most families make either ham or turkey, which do you like better?"

But apparently Katya had never had neither holiday ham nor turkey- she'd never celebrated Thanksgiving- so Aunt May decided for them. "Duck it is."

Peter balked. "Duck? Aunt May, you've never cooked a duck."

"It'll be an adventure for everybody."

—- —-

And adventure it was. "Oh shit, were we supposed to brine it?" Aunt May asked Katya, whilst she held the bare bird in her hands by the arms like an infant.

"That's what it says here. For like, a whole day."

The bird slipped from Aunt May's grasp and back onto the cutting board. "Oops. Well we can skip that part- what's next?"

Katya leaned over the instructions, once again printed out by Aunt May that morning. "Pat dry from the brine- well, we can skip that part too- and score the skin so the fat renders."

Aunt May let out a sigh. "Hey Peter!" She called, though Peter was sitting right at the kitchen island. "Come 'score this skin.'"

Peter rolled his eyes but did so, and it was harder than it looked. "Don't hit the meat." Katya instructed, her eyes on the paper before her. "Skin only.'

"I know, that's what I'm doing." Peter said, resisting the urge to wince as his knife accidentally poked into the meat of the bird. Well one- okay, seven- knicks weren't going to hurt it.

Aunt May had made sure that that morning had been extra magical. They ate the cookies they'd made the day before for breakfast, and they'd gotten Katya a few stocking stuffers- which she didn't understand, at first. ("Why would you put presents in a large sock?") but was delighted by. Most of them were seeds- for summer squash, cucumber, tomato, and dandelions- as well as a tiny watering pot for her indoor plants. Katya grinned but spread her hands. "I didn't know you were going to get me all of this." Her brows furrowed. "I didn't get you as much stuff."

Aunt May waved it off. "You didn't know- and that's the best part of Christmas, is the giving."

What she did get, though, was for Peter. "I helped build it." She said proudly as she handed it over. "Okay, maybe I didn't help that much with the actual building, but it was my idea." Once Peter'd torn the paper off- he was surprised Mr. Stark even owned wrapping paper- it turned out to be another spider drone, to replace the one Anezka had shot to pieces.

"And this one has a cloaking device," Katya shrugged. "You know, just in case."

Peter grinned, and handed over what he and May had gotten her- her very own set of Legos. Loose legos, not meant to build anything in particular, and her face lit up, sending a warmth spreading through Peter's chest.

As the duck cooked, Peter and Katya spent most of their time on the living room floor, playing with the Legos he'd gotten her. Katya'd laid the tracker right beside her, and leaned over to check it every so often, but judging by her face there didn't seem to be much movement.

They'd also made a honey-apple cake, as per Aunt May's instructions- this one did require baking powder-, which ended up with a lot less flour on the floor now that Peter had scooped instead of poured- which went in the oven with the duck, presumably to finish in time for dinner. Katya'd managed to cut the apples into perfect little wedges that were easily arranged in an artful, spiral pattern. She shrugged. "Chopping is soothing." Which didn't soothe Peter at all, knowing all too well her favorite thing to have in her hand was a knife.

But the cake had come out mostly unscathed- some of it had stuck to the molding- and the duck was surprisingly good. Peter'd never had duck.

"It's like all…chicken thighs." Katya commented, which Peter agreed with- all dark meat. Aunt May had also made mashed potatoes and roasted brussel sprouts, which again Katya had helped with, as she got to chop things- that came out surprisingly well. Not that May was a bad cook, in her own right, but it was obvious Katya had helped. It was just new recipes May had a hard time with. And this duck was new to all of them.

"Mission accomplished." Katya declared, after she'd swallowed, with a nod.

"Mission accomplished." May echoed.

Peter grinned. His two favorite people in the world, in one kitchen, at one time. "Mission accomplished."