The months got progressively colder and rainier, Eva's gardening jobs became fewer, and one morning she woke up to find a heavy blanket of snow on New York, making the city look almost pristine for once and her journey to work a whole lot more exciting. Christmas was fast approaching, foreshadowed by the apparition of the seasonal gingerbread latte on the coffee shop menu ("I god damn HATE that drink, V! I can smell gingerbread in my freakin' dreams!"). For the last few years, Eva had spent it with her plants and Rachel Carson, eating cold turkey sandwiches and watching Die Hard 2, the one true Christmas movie. However, within the space of a year she had gained both a friend and a boyfriend, which meant for the first time she might actually enjoy the holiday.
It was agreed; she would take Rachel Carson with her to the Avengers HQ on Christmas Eve, sleep over, and spend the morning with all the supers that didn't have family to go home to. Barton had his wife and kids, and took Romanoff with him; Rhodey and Hill were on leave too, leaving the Captain, Wanda, Vision and Sam- and Eva, of course. In the afternoon Eva had promised her boyfriend she would attend Christmas dinner with his family, and their boxing day would be spent at her apartment, watching Die Hard 2. Sometimes in a relationship, you have to learn when to not compromise and put your foot down instead, and seasonal Bruce Willis movies were one of those times.
The last lingering instincts of childhood meant Eva woke up at about three a.m., and leapt out of bed to press her nose against the window. Being a child of Texas meant snow on Christmas Day was still ridiculously exciting for her, and she stayed there until her nose threatened to freeze off. Then she turned round and divebombed Sam, who was still asleep on the bed.
"Wake up, asshole, it's Christmas!"
He groaned and rolled over. "'S too early in the morning for it t'be early in the morning."
"But it's Christmas!"
"Go back t'slee', Ev."
But, of course, she couldn't, so she grabbed a small, badly wrapped present and ran next door.
"Vision! Answer the door, it's-"
"Christmas?" he asked amusedly, and she hugged him.
"I brought you a present," she said, blushing slightly as she held it out to him. He held up a finger and beckoned her inside, before picking up a much better-wrapped one and exchanging with her. She tore off the paper to reveal The Sense of Wonder, by the one and only Rachel Carson.
For some reason, her eyes began to burn and she clutched the book to her chest as a lump rose in her throat. "Thank you."
"You are very welcome," said Vision, "and thank you for this." She had bequeathed unto him her own battered copy of How To Be A Person, which had saved her ass more than a few times during college and was too good a present to pass up for her newly created friend.
"So how's your first Christmas?" she asked him, after regaining her composure.
"So far, it has been wonderful. Sam is still asleep, I presume?"
"Yep. As is Rachel Carson- I got him a book on falconry, because I'm hilarious."
Vision laughed.
After a couple of hours, she went back and woke up Sam again, who had gone to a garden shop and apparently bought every packet of seeds they owned, poured them into one large container, stuck a bow on top and told her she'd hit the "flower jackpot". She didn't have the heart to tell him that since they were unlabelled, she wouldn't know what kind of soil to put them in and 90% of the seeds would never actually sprout, but accepted it with a laugh.
They found the rest of the remaining Avengers in the rec room, which had been badly decorated with paper-chains bought from the dollar store that had badly drawn pictures of the most famous superheroes on them, as well as stockings filled with action figures of themselves and a tree with Avenger baubles (the angel at the top's face had been replaced with a tiny photo of Tony Stark, which Rogers in particular found hilarious).
In fact, Steve and Sam were easily the most enthusiastic out of all of them, and spent much of the morning singing carols, eating Christmas cake, pulling crackers and between them wearing a total of eighteen Santa hats. Meanwhile, Vision taught the girls how to play chess, Eva threw walnuts at Sam and Steve, and Wanda told them about her childhood Christmases back in Sokovia, and seemed happier than Eva had ever seen her.
At about one in the afternoon, Sam and Eva bade the rest of them farewell and trudged through the snow out of HQ and began the long-ish walk to Harlem, since driving was a terrible idea in that weather. Seeing as it was those two, the walk quickly devolved into a travelling snowball fight, and by the time they reached Mr & Mrs Wilson's house both were shivering but triumphant. Abbie's husband- Sam's brother-in-law- opened the door and the two were quickly ambushed by the two nieces, each gaining one stuck to their legs.
It was a proper cliché Christmas dinner- they even said grace beforehand. Eva was sat opposite Sam, and within minutes a game of idle footsie had turned into a full-out kicking war which went unnoticed by the rest of the table. They stayed and played old-fashioned parlour games for an hour, then braved the bitterly cold night back to her apartment.
"Nice to be here without your damn cat," Sam said, stamping off the snow on his boots and chucking his coat in a corner.
"Rachel Carson's been here longer than you are, remember," she told him severely, stripping off her soggy clothes. He raised an eyebrow at her. "What? Not like you haven't seen it before, and I am still wearing a bra. That's more than I do normally at home."
"Fair point," he acceded, pulling off his own shirt. She laughed.
"Merry Christmas, Sam."
"And a happy new year," he sang.
A/N Christmas chapter! Next update will be in the new year.