Disclaimer: I don't own Black Clover. I just love it a lot.

Authoress' Note: I really wanted to write up something for Christmas, and a few ideas came to my head. So I decided to write out a small collection of ficlets featuring some of my favorite and/or growing-on-me pairings. As a note, however, I don't plan on calling it Christmas, and instead using a different name since I don't think the world has any sort of established holiday norms. It's still the same sort of theme, though. Please enjoy!

Mishaps with Mistletoe

Mishap One

Nero only meant to help.

That was what came to her mind when she flew back into the Black Bulls headquarters, three days before the Festival of Yule, with a sprig of mistletoe within her beak. Honestly, she really had no idea why she felt this need to intervene. After all, her only real task was to look after the five-leaf grimoire and making sure it never fell into the hands of that cursed devil. But after many months of watching the hopeless water mage act like a total fool around the equally hopeless anti-magic swordsman – in addition to several times said water mage confided in her in which Nero couldn't help but feel sorry for her – she felt some strange urge to help them out. At least this once.

And by help, she would flutter over the pair when they were together, and try to provoke them to follow the established tradition of sharing a kiss under the mistletoe. A simple kiss on the cheek would do, allowing for one brief moment for Noelle to share her clearly obvious feelings for Asta while also allowing her to save face that she was only doing it as tradition dictates. Or, on the reverse, she would allow him to kiss her cheek because of the tradition. Either way worked, the girl-turned-bird reasoned.

It was a sound plan. Or so she thought.

What she didn't entirely plan on was how rambunctious the Black Bulls were going to be three nights before the main holiday, figuring the worst of it would be on the actual day. She didn't figure that there would be such insistence on starting up the party early – you know, "in case people had other plans for the Festival" - nor did she count on the pink-haired lush of the crew to get mostly everyone thoroughly drunk in about two hours. But it happened, and Nero could only internally sigh at the insanity that rang out through the main hall, knowing that it was going to go into the late night, already resigning herself to a night of little sleep because of it.

As such, she didn't plan on how much the outcome she was aiming for was going to change. Oh, at the start, things went as she plotted out, taking advantage of a moment when the two were separated from the larger group – trying to avoid being brought into the more drunken shenanigans, of course – to flutter down with the sprig in her beak, hovering over and between the pair.

At first, they were confused, wondering what Nero was doing and what she was carrying, before both realizing what the plant was. The two reacted in the way the cursed woman thought they would: Noelle became a blubbering mess, while Asta acted nonchalant as usual, even in the face of his partner's yelling about the meaning and tradition of the mistletoe. The blubbering only continued when Asta made a comment on how it was "just a silly tradition" and a "peck on the cheek" didn't have to mean anything like what she was freaking out about.

After the opening conversation, however, Noelle cleared her throat, lamenting how she couldn't believe she had to participate in this "dumb tradition" with "the likes of a stupid commoner" like Asta, but would allow him to kiss her cheek "just this once", as she wasn't one to simply go against such a long-held tradition. And he – like the simple-minded boy he was – paid no mind to her blustering and dark red cheeks, taking the queue to lean in and give her that peck on the cheek that the royal mage was secretly excited for.

But that's where things had changed. Before Nero could entirely react, barely missing being hit by a feather, the fighting between an extra-hyper Luck and an inebriated Magma had made its way over towards them. And in their stupid act, a set of elbows rammed their way into Asta's back, pushing him harshly towards Noelle's direction, their bodies colliding against one another as he tried to brace himself and she tried to keep him at bay.

Instead of a kiss on the cheek, their lips collided in a very rough way, Noelle's back hitting a pillar with a harsh hit and Asta's hands on either side of her frame, awkwardly pressed palms against the brick with her hands at his chest, their eyes shutting at the impact before opening extra wide to stare at the other in shock. All of the rowdiness of the crew turned into numbing silence in a matter of moments, all baring witness to the impromptu kiss with equal surprise. It was then that Nero realized that her well laid plans had all gone to waste, and with a heavy sigh she flew away up into the rafters. She knew what was about to happen in the next three seconds, and the last thing she wanted was to be caught in the impact.

The moment her clawed feet hit the wood, there came the flustered apologies, the screaming, a cry of "Dumbasta!" followed by the sound of drowning and water being shot all the way across the hall, a wall giving way to the force of the water, followed by nonsensical heavy breathing and sentence structure.

She turned her head, dropping the sprig onto the wood beside her, and the anti-bird shook her head, sighing again as she shut her eyes, taking a moment to enjoy the quiet before the chaos started up again. Well... at least she tried to help. But perhaps it was still just a little too soon.