A/N: hello this is a christmas chapter but the plot is pretty contained within this chapter. i tried to write it in a way that's inclusive so it doesn't talk a lot about the like actual jesus parts of christmas and most of the themes revolve around family and not religion so hopefully reading it is not uncomfortable for anyone! if you don't want to though you can definitely skip it

Chapter Sixteen: Mistletoe and Holly

"Bah, humbug—well, that's too strong / 'cause it is my favorite holiday." -The Waitresses

December 24, 2012 - Avengers Tower Common Floor - Manhattan, NY

Christmas, for Audrey, had always revolved very much around a routine. Christmas Eve consisted of a frilly dress, church, and a large dinner; the next morning was the one time a year Peggy would sleep in, a large breakfast that she and Daniel would cook together, and opening gifts under a tree, before driving to meet Howard, Maria, and Tony for lunch.

This Christmas would be different for a lot of reasons, Audrey knew. For starters, it would be the first she wouldn't be spending with Peggy. Daniel, Laura, and Michael had all asked her to come home, but she knew Steve wouldn't be ecstatic about spending the holiday with his ex and her husband and their children and grandchildren, and she didn't want to leave him to spend his first holidays out of the ice alone. Which was the second thing—her father would be alive for Christmas. As a young kid, Audrey had assumed that Daniel was her dad; she was never wanting for affection from him and her mother. But when Peggy had explained Steve to her, it had created a sort of gap. She knew she had lost something, and she began to feel it.

Having him back was a miracle, and for that gap to be gone was something she had never expected to happen. A year ago, her plans for Christmas were the same as always, but this year, they'd changed. This year, Christmas was dinner with the rest of the Tower, trying to figure out what Natasha liked so she could buy her a gift, and a distinct lack of fruitcake.

Audrey had known for a while now that this Christmas would be out of the ordinary—and that was before Manhattan's power went out and Tony got held hostage. After all that, out of the ordinary began to feel like a serious understatement.

FIVE HOURS EARLIER

Audrey drifted into the Avengers kitchen, high off the aroma of the apple pie Clint had just pulled from the oven. Since the disaster with TMZ, she'd spent time thinking long and hard about what she wanted for Christmas. There wasn't much to ask for, so in the end, she'd settled on apple pie.

Clint had laughed when she told him, but not cruelly. "I make the best apple pie."

"It's true," Natasha had endorsed. "He can't cook anything else, but he does make the best apple pie."

So her Christmas wish had been to try Clint's apple pie, and he didn't disappoint. Her stomach grumbled as she went to pull her own dish out of one of the other ovens.

"That smells amazing," she sighed, leaning against the counter with her casserole and watching him flail around with the pie in one hand and a folded-up cooling rack in the other.

"Thank you," Clint said, flicking his wrist to try and force the legs of the rack away from its grated surface.

"Do you need help with that?" Audrey asked. Clint didn't answer. After a moment, she took the rack from him and opened it herself.

"I told you. I'm a good midwestern boy, and I know my apple pie."

"Please don't ever call yourself a good midwestern boy again," Natasha requested from where she stood over the stove. She was frying latkes in a pan.

"Yeah," Clint agreed. "I regretted it as soon as I said it."

Audrey had been looking forward to the apple pie all week. Everything else about the day was up in the air—she had no idea if Steve would like her gift, or if it was weird that she'd gotten presents for everyone in the Tower, or if Christmas without Peggy was going to make her terribly homesick. But she knew that the pie would be delicious, and that regardless of how everything else went, she could count on the pie to support her through it.

"When are we eating?" Audrey asked, reaching for a cookie on a plate that Darcy was arranging.

Darcy swatted her hand away. "Those are for dessert, you animal. We're eating when everyone gets up here in their mandatory terrible sweaters." She gestured at her own sweater, which bore a gold menorah. "I'm leading by example."

"You sure are."

Darcy handed her the plate. "Put these in the fridge."

Audrey did as she was told, making herself useful until the rest of the team had arrived upstairs. She'd been surprised that nobody was returning home for the holidays, before she'd made the depressing realization that almost none of them had homes to go back to. She was an exception, even though she—like the rest of the team—had spent most of her time alone in an apartment before the Invasion.

Everybody else came upstairs in groups. Thor and Jane were early, Steve, Bruce, and Pepper right on time, and Tony late. She met him with eggnog when he arrived, and the two settled at the bar.

"This looks good," Tony observed.

"I'm starving," Audrey moaned, resting her chin on her hand and taking in the table—the food looked delicious and she hadn't eaten all afternoon. "It's nice to see you out of the lab before midnight."

Tony shrugged. "I promised Pep that I would actually take a few days off. Implemented security protocols locking the labs that only Lewis can override. No suits, no tools, no anything."

Darcy, as if summoned, breezed by them, planting a reindeer antlers headband on his head. Though he rolled his eyes, he didn't remove the accessory, instead lifting his glass in toast. Audrey matched him with her cup of apple cider, and then finished the rest of her glass.

"Lewis, I thought you were Jewish," Tony called out.

"I am," Darcy replied. "I have no idea what's happening right now, I just think you look dumb in the headband. Smile!" She whipped out her phone to take a photo, and Tony lifted his hand to block his face. "Too slow."

"Hey," he called, abandoning the bar to chase her down. "Come back, Lewis. You didn't get my good side."

Audrey leaned back and looked out at the dining room. This was the exact last place she'd expected to find herself a year ago—having Christmas dinner in Tony Stark's skyscraper with two assassins, her dead dad, an ex-New York society girl, a Norse god, and the Hulk.

Steve approached her, a bottle of coke in his hand, dressed in a plain red sweater. "Merry Christmas," he greeted.

"You, too," Audrey replied. "Different from your last one?"

He snorted. "You mean the one I spent in the woods of Switzerland fighting Nazis?"

"Yeah, that one."

"Then, yes. The slightest bit different."

"Better or worse?"

Steve shook his head. "Better. Much better, actually." She grinned. The bar was low, sure, but she was happy to be clearing it for now. "How was Christmas with Peggy, usually?"

Audrey shrugged. "Church on Christmas Eve, then dinner. Then Church again in the mornings. It was all very Anglican."

"I bet. I was more Catholic, growing up. My Ma and I used to go over to Bucky's family's apartment for dinner. Food wasn't as good then as it is now, though. It tasted like a lot of nothing."

Food. Audrey's stomach growled. "I'm excited to eat tonight," she said. "Food is good, but this food all looks especially good."

Across the room, there was a crashing noise. "Lucky, no!" Clint scolded. Audrey turned to find Lucky with his front paws on one of the chairs and his snout dangerously close to a pizza on the table. Clint signed hurriedly at the dog, who whined but dropped back down to the floor. Audrey hadn't seen Lucky that often—he stayed in Clint's apartment for the most part, except for accompanying him on errands. He wasn't much of a service dog, since he was also deaf, but he gave Clint a reason to get out of the Tower that wasn't work-related.

"Should we sit down?" Steve asked. "Make it harder, at least, for him to get to the food."

"We should," Audrey answered, though more for her benefit than to keep Lucky from the food. They headed over to the table, where Audrey settled in her chair and set her eyes on the target—Clint's apple pie. It was for dessert, she knew, but she figured that nobody would actually try to stop her if she wanted to start with that. Her enthusiasm for this specific dish was so painfully, stereotypically American, but her awareness of that fact didn't make her any less hungry. The rest of the team followed her soon after, taking their places around the table.

"A happy holidays to you all," Thor said, from his spot at the head of the table. "I'm grateful for the opportunity to celebrate this special, magic baby with you all."

Next to Audrey, Steve raised an eyebrow. Special, magic baby was probably not how he was used to hearing Jesus described.

"Great speech, Point Break," Tony retorted. "Can someone pass me one of the—are those chicken wings?"

Audrey leaned over to grab the plate of fried chicken and hand it to Tony, but as soon as she stood, the room went dark. She knocked over something on the table that fizzed as it spilled. "Shit," she muttered.

"Aw, blackout, no," Clint complained. "What the hell, Tony? Thought this building was supposed to be self-powering."

"It is," Tony said. Audrey could make out enough of his silhouette to catch him standing up from the table. She swept her gaze from him to the skyline outside. Block by block, the rest of Manhattan was also going dark. "The arc reactor isn't the problem," he realized. "That is."

"We need to split up," Steve announced. "Sweep the streets for injuries, distribute flashlights and emergency supplies."

Audrey blew out a breath. The pie was the smallest of her problems now, she knew, but some part of her wanted to reach out for it just to have a bite before they split up. She resisted the urge, and instead fiddled with her phone until she turned the flashlight on.

"Stark, you and I can attempt to reset the power," Thor decided.

"Yeah, but first we gotta figure out where the outage is coming from. My arc reactor shouldn't have been affected by whatever happened to the rest of the electrical grid."

"Well, clearly, it was," came Natasha's low voice.

"That means this was deliberate," Tony said. "Someone went out of their way to target the Tower and the rest of Manhattan."

"We need to figure out who," Steve said. "And why. We'll split up and take different parts of town. If you need to call anyone to check up on them, now's the time to do it. We'll head downstairs in ten."

"You heard the man," Tony seconded, sounding exasperated by the situation. "Let's get to work."

December 24, 2012 - Manhattan, NY

While Tony and Thor worked on getting the power grid back online, Audrey found herself with Clint and Lucky on the upper west side. Lucky had been brought along more for his own safety and less for his potential usefulness, because, as Clint had put it, "His two most important senses have been taken from him. What's he gonna do? Use taste to find his way around?" So he'd carried the 90-pound dog like a baby down 90 flights of stairs without complaining, and then taken the time to put little booties on his paws to keep him warm.

They'd raided the makeshift infirmary in the labs for first-aid supplies and split them up as best they could. Audrey clutched her bag, feeling stupid in her reindeer sweater and ugg boots, but doing her best not to think too much about it.

NYPD had already stationed cars up and down most of the streets they were sweeping, so her and Clint's work was cut out nicely for them. If someone had fallen in the stairwell of their building, Audrey would help carry them down to get checked out. If someone didn't have enough flashlights or candles, Clint would pass out lightsticks.

"Why didn't you get a service dog?" Audrey asked as they rounded a corner. They'd been walking in silence for a while, and the cold was getting to her.

"What's wrong with Lucky?" Clint asked. Audrey looked down at the golden retriever, who was currently attempting to eat an abandoned styrofoam cup off the sidewalk. "Besides that." He tugged on the leash and Lucky abandoned the trash.

"Well, isn't the point of a service dog to help you with the thing you struggle with? Like. Hearing loss?"

Clint shrugged. "I was gonna get a service dog, you know, because I have good health insurance and everything, but this guy is my soulmate. He may also be deaf, and he may eat garbage, and I may have caught him on more than one occasion attempting to pull the buttons off my couch cushions, but love is love."

"I don't think that means what you think it means."

"You think you can school me on pop culture, Carter? You're old enough to be my mother."

Audrey wrinkled her nose at Clint's proclamation. If his goal had been to distract her long enough to win the argument, he had succeeded. She shoved her hands in her pockets and tried to sink lower into her sweater to cover the exposed skin of her neck from the biting cold. Of all the things she was worried about with the blackout, the first was hospitals, and the second was a loss of heating. It was brutal out, and she had no doubt in her mind that the cold was making things difficult for a lot of people as it seeped into apartments.

"We're lucky it was Christmas," Audrey remarked, as she and Clint passed the scene of a car crash. The two drivers were giving a statement to police on the corner, arguing over who had had the right of way. "Less people on the roads. If this had happened any other night, I feel like it would've been a lot worse."

"It absolutely would've been worse," Clint agreed. "New Yorkers can't drive for shit."

"Where did you learn to drive?" Audrey asked, voice going up an octave in a failed attempt to sound casual. She'd managed to piece together bits and pieces of Natasha's past just from their work together and the legends that floated around S.H.I.E.L.D. about her, but she didn't know much about Clint.

She could tell that he'd noticed her changing the subject, but he didn't comment on it. Instead, he answered honestly. "Missouri. On a tractor, actually."

"You weren't kidding when you said Midwestern."

"I was not. I grew up all over, but Missouri specifically was where I learned to drive."

"Are you any good?"

"Not then. I'm better now, but not by much. What about you, Carter? Should we make you the getaway driver for our next rendezvous?"

Audrey shook her head. "I learned to drive in Los Angeles."

Clint gagged. "Yeah, no, nevermind. No chance." He stopped in his tracks, raising a finger to point at a group of people in masks holding baseball bats down the block. Then, he said, "That's suspicious."

Audrey glanced up at the sign above the storefront—Armita's Jewellers—before grabbing him and pulling him behind the nearest storefront. "Well, it's definitely not wholesome holiday fun." She frowned. "Do you think they're just taking advantage of the blackout? Or do you think it was intentional?"

"Masks say it was prepped, but shutting down the entire borough of Manhattan to get your hands on some diamonds seems like a lot of work for no good reason," Clint responded, voice low. He seemed equally puzzled by the circumstances. "How do you want to play this?" he asked.

Audrey's eyes bugged out of her head. "Why are you looking to me for guidance?" she whispered. "I'm a terrible leader. You should do it."

"Okay," Clint agreed. "I'm great at plans." He narrowed his eyes at the trio, as if sizing them up. "Well, we have no weapons, and we are outnumbered."

"I'm stronger than them, though."

"That's true. So we're not really outnumbered. We could call it even."

"Well, they still have the baseball bats."

"So we're outgunned." He blew out a breath. "I think our best plan at this exact moment is to tackle them. You in?"

Audrey wasn't a huge fan of his plan, but she couldn't honestly think of anything better. Calling and waiting for the police would cause too much of a scene, and they were already understaffed due to the holiday and overwhelmed with other complaints; plus, she liked to think she was capable enough to best a guy with a baseball bat in hand-to-hand. Still—running in completely unarmed, in the dark, with no means of restraining the people they aimed to tackle didn't seem like the best idea—but what other choice did she have?

"What are you gonna do with the dog?" Audrey asked, pointing at Lucky, who had settled on the concrete and was licking his paw.

Clint shrugged. "I'll just tell him to stay."

A loud crash! reverberated down towards them, and Audrey sighed. "Alright. Here we go."

Clint dropped Lucky's leash and signed to him something Audrey assumed meant stay, and then they took off down the block. "Hey!" Clint shouted, and one of the robbers, dressed like an owl, looked up. Clint tackled him, wrestling the baseball bat from out of his hands and conking him over the head. He crumpled to the ground.

Audrey ducked, nearly missing a swing from another one of the robbers, wearing a dinosaur mask. Oh, Jesus. He tried to swing again, this time holding the bat like a golf club and aiming for her torso. She grabbed onto it and yanked, but instead of pulling it from his hand, she just sent both of them tumbling down to the concrete. Audrey curled a leg around him and slid out from under his body, pinning him down on his back and pulling the bat up against his throat. Clint had disarmed the third robber, who was wearing a lion mask, but he hadn't restrained him.

In the moment before attacking, she'd just assumed that she would figure out a plan for restraining the robbers as she went, but that plan hadn't ever arrived. So Audrey dropped her weight onto his back, resolving to sit on him as she dug through her bag in search of anything. All she had was first aid kits and lighters, neither of which were going to do her any good.

"You got ace bandages?" Clint asked her.

She pulled one of the first aid kits out and unfastened the locks to pull it open. There was a roll of wrapping inside that she tossed to Clint. He fastened a knot around the hands of the man in the lion mask, before dragging him over to a bike rack at the edge of the sidewalk and binding him to it. Audrey attempted to copy his knot, but it ended up much weaker. When he'd finished with the owl guy, he knelt down next to her to help.

"Where'd you learn to tie a knot?" she asked him.

"Circus," he replied nonchalantly.

"Seriously?" she asked, dumbfounded.

Clint shrugged, which didn't help answer her question at all.

Audrey's comms piece buzzed with static before her dad's voice broke through. "Aud? Barton? How are things?"

"Got a robbery, Cap," said Clint.

There was a moment with no response, and then Natasha asked, "What's their MO?"

"Three men," Audrey answered. "Rubber animal masks, dressed in all black, baseball bats."

Natasha sighed. "We got a robbery here, too."

Clint shot a look in Audrey's direction. "MO?" he asked.

"Three men," Steve replied. "Animal masks, dressed in all black, baseball bats."

Audrey blew out a breath. So the outage wasn't accidental after all. She reached forward and yanked the mask off the man in the middle—a lion, of all things—who looked remarkably not scary beneath. He had a round, pale face and wide eyes. He looked familiar, too, but she didn't know where from.

"Who are you?" Audrey demanded. He avoided her eyes. She pulled Clint's arm. "Does this guy look familiar to you?"

Clint studied him for a moment. "I've seen his mugshot before. You're Jason Altman." When Audrey raised her eyebrow, Clint added, "The guy who got charged with starting that company that committed a shitton of medical fraud. And illegal human experimentation." He leaned back onto his heels, his left hand going to scratch Lucky behind his left ear. "Aren't you supposed to be in prison?"

"They let me spend Christmas at home as a reward for my good behavior."

"Clearly well earned," Clint deadpanned.

Audrey frowned. Why would someone in prison for medical fraud get a day out and immediately attempt to rob a diamond shop? If he had been part of a large corporate scheme, he surely had other ways of making money quickly—ways that didn't involve a spontaneous, barely-armed robbery.

Clint seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he pressed his earpiece and asked, "Hey, Tasha, you got ID on any of the guys you caught?"

"They're a bunch of disrupter startup investors," Natasha replied. "They're annoying."

Audrey glanced up at the storefront again, where the window was shattered, but the duffle bag they'd been shoving the jewelry into was left on the floor. The sign looked familiar, but Audrey knew for a fact that she'd never been to this store before.

She took a step back. "Watch them," she said to Clint, already heading for the corner. The street signs read 85th and Amsterdam. "Hey, where was the sight of the robbery?" she asked Natasha.

A beat of static passed. "40th and Madison," Natasha said. "Why?"

Audrey's pulse kicked up its pace. She wanted to believe that it was just a coincidence, but then again—it all seemed a little too carefully plotted out to be unrelated. Two groups of robbers, with the same number and MO, who were all involved with disrupter startups, and who happened to be targeting sights extremely close to the entrances to the SHIELD tunnels that ran beneath Manhattan? That didn't scan as explainable by coincidence.

The tunnels had been built in the 60s, to allow for the interception and surveillance of phone lines all around the city. Since then, they'd become mostly defunct, but S.H.I.E.L.D. still maintained them for the sake of convenience—if agents could get from Point A to Point B faster than the average person, it gave them the upper hand. Besides being a speedway, though, the tunnels' only potential purpose was their connection to the Vault.

Oh, shit.

The Vault.

She wasn't familiar with Altman's case, but if it involved illegal human experimentation, it was possible that S.H.I.E.L.D. was investigating. If they had evidence stored in New York, the Vault was where they would've kept it.

"Hey guys," Bruce said over the comms channel. His voice was shaky in a way Audrey only recognized from the Helicarrier last spring. She tensed, bracing for what was to follow. "Uh, Kate and I got four guys trying to break into a liquor store on 145th and Broadway."

"Let me guess," Clint asked, looking at Audrey, disdained. "Animal masks and baseball bats?"

"Uh, yeah, actually," Bruce said. "They calmed down when I threatened to pull a code green, but this doesn't seem like it's just four clowns trying to get some extra cash."

Clint sighed, then folded his arms across his chest as he surveyed the three men tied to the bike racks. "We've got a conspiracy on our hands," he declared dramatically.

"What I don't understand is why they would send four to the Harlem entrance and only three to the Upper West Side and Midtown entrances," Audrey shared. "Doesn't make sense. If anything, this one is the hardest to get into."

Clint considered, and then suggested, "Maybe they didn't." Audrey raised an eyebrow. "Maybe they sent four here, and four to Midtown, as well."

"So that means…"

"They've already got two men in the tunnels."

Audrey knew she had to call it into Fury, but when she pulled her phone from her pocket she found that it was dead. There was no way to contact him without going directly to the base, and even then, it would just be easiest to take the tunnels since the streets were such a mess right now.

"My phone is dead," Audrey announced to Clint.

"Cops?"

She shook her head. "If the tunnels' existence goes public, S.H.I.E.L.D. is screwed and we're all gonna be put on Fury's hitlist."

Clint pursed his lips. "So what do we do?"

Audrey grimaced as she admitted to herself the extremely unfortunate truth. "Someone needs to go down there and find them." She pressed on her comms piece. "Can we get someone in each passageway looking for the men unaccounted for?"

"Those tunnels are impossible to navigate in the dark, Carter," Natasha warned. "You got light?"

"I have a flashlight. And a lighter, if worse comes to worst. Um. Well, Clint and I are closest to the Vault entrance, and securing that should be our top priority. We know there are agents stationed below, but we don't know who these guys have underground or where they are. I've got a dead phone, though. Are you able to reach anyone inside?"

"No, my phone's dead too," Natasha answered.

Audrey frowned. If her phone was dead, it was negligence. But Natasha was never that irresponsible. "Do you think it was an e-bomb?" Audrey asked.

"I do," Tony said. "The power grid is fucked up. We're gonna need to completely reboot, and figure out how to get backup generators back online."

"I have an idea for that," Thor assured them.

"Okay, we've got that covered," Steve said. "But who's going underground?"

"I'll go," Clint said. "Tasha, Kate, I'm headed for the Vault. Meet me down there. Work on finding the–"

A sharp, sudden noise shrieked through their comms, and Audrey hissed, instinctively pulling the device from her ear. It was hot to the touch in a way she'd never felt before, and she dropped it on the ground as she shook her burnt hand.

She looked up at Clint. What the hell had that been? He didn't have an answer for her, though—just an extremely unfortunate look on his face. "Hey, so, fun update," he announced. "My hearing aid just got fried."

She winced, making sure to enunciate her next words so he could understand. "Does this mean I'm the one exploring the secret underground tunnels?"

"Sure does," Clint said. "It's a Christmas miracle. For me, I mean. For you, it sucks."

Audrey dragged her gaze across the jewelry shop, which was covered in shattered glass. Clint was right. This sucked.

December 24, 2012 - Somewhere Beneath Manhattan

Natasha hadn't been exaggerating when she said that the tunnels would be impossible to navigate in the dark. They were already kind of like a maze, and it was made especially terrible by the lack of GPS and the darkness. She clutched her flashlight in her hand and wandered around aimlessly for a bit, trying to count her turns, but every corridor looked the same and she wasn't sure if she was getting any closer to the Vault's entrance.

Well, at least if she was struggling this much to get around, the criminals had it worse.

She was lucky that her comms device had only gone offline for a moment before reconnecting, or else she would've had to find Natasha through echolocation—probably not the best when she was attempting to be stealthy. Her best guess about the situation right now was that Altman was trying to destroy evidence to overturn his conviction or to strengthen his defense in a trial for different charges. The Vault was the Hub's equivalent to an evidence locker, stretching deep below the city and housing floor after floor of S.H.I.E.L.D. intelligence, weaponry, and technology spanning all the way back to the 40s.

Technology spanning back to the 40s. Audrey skidded to a stop. How could she have been so dumb? She reached for the chain around her neck and pulled the compass from it—Steve's compass; the one he'd given to her for her birthday. Her phone had failed her, but a power outage wasn't going to stop a magnet.

She held the flashlight over the compass' face. The Vault was beneath the Jackie Onassis Reserve in Central Park, north of where she'd entered. The compass told her that she was, and she pivoted, shining the light ahead and looking for the nearest left turn.

A loud, metallic bang echoed towards her from the path she'd just come down, and Audrey's heart stuttered. She was beyond the point of being afraid of the dark, but being completely unanchored wasn't comforting. Dragging the beam of light as she turned, Audrey held her breath. She froze. The flashlight caught something shiny that threw a beam back in her direction, and she stilled. This was exactly how Moscow had gone, and that had ended up with her kidnapped. You're okay, she said. All the exits are being monitored. You're gonna be okay.

She shifted the flashlight up. It wasn't the Winter Soldier she'd found wandering beneath New York. It was a large, shadowy figure, holding a sledgehammer and a horse mask.

It was bizarre that her life had reached a point where she found this, of all things, comforting.

Audrey suppressed a scream as the horse-man raised the sledgehammer up in an attempt to bring it down on her head. The flashlight dropped to the ground as she moved to catch the hammer's handle, and she yanked it out of his hand.

"Stop it!" she shouted, which wasn't the best thing she'd ever come up with to say in the face of danger, but unfortunately, was also not the worst. The figure ignored her, instead lunging to tackle her and sending her flying back. Their scuffle sent noise bouncing back and forth between the tunnel walls and Audrey grunted as she hit the ground. The flashlight was still on, aimed straight at the horse man's face and casting a giant, terrifying shadow behind him. She grabbed onto the mask's snout and yanked it off his face, throwing it behind her. "What the—"

The man backhanded her and she fell silent, less from the physical blow and more from the psychic blow of realizing who the man was. Julian Bardot was on top of her. Julian Bardot, French billionaire, had just been wearing a horse mask and trying to kill her with a sledgehammer. "I knew you weren't a caterer," he spat.

Audrey pushed him off of her and scrambled for the sledgehammer. She held it up threateningly. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"You're going to pay for what you did to me and my family."

She grimaced. "I didn't do anything to you and your family. You were the one who decided to sell weapons on the black market."

He swung a fist to punch her, but she caught it easily and twisted his arm. "You've ruined my life," he cried out.

Audrey rolled her eyes. "You were happily prepared to ruin the lives of countless people. To end their lives."

Bardot had no response. He just attempted to pull his hand from hers, but Audrey kept a tight grip on his wrist. She pushed his hand further back. "Ow! You bitch. Ow."

Using her shoulder to hit the button on her earpiece, Audrey asked, "Can I get backup in the tunnels? I'm estimating that I'm a block or so from the Vault entrance and I have Julian Bardot with me."

"The dick from Paris?" came Clint's disbelieving reply.

"Yup," Audrey returned.

"You're too late," Bardot said, grinning smugly. "It only needed to be one of us."

"I'm on my way to you, Carter," Natasha announced.

"One of who?" Audrey demanded, tossing the sledgehammer behind her and moving her hand to Bardot's neck. The weapon clanged around noisily as it skidded down the hall. Bardot didn't answer, though, just kept grinning. She tightened her grip and the smile dropped. "One of who?"

"You're—not—going—to kill—me," he choked out.

Audrey considered it. He was right; she wouldn't kill him if she didn't have to, but she couldn't have him knowing that. She squeezed tighter. "One of who? Your guy from Midtown wasn't going to make it up to the Vault before you, and you didn't."

"Not him," Bardot grunted. Audrey relaxed her hand the slightest bit. "Her."

Her? She opened her mouth to ask, but Tony's voice in her ear cut her off.

"—having a happy holidays," he said. "You know. The whole shebang, big dinner, got a nice gift for my girlfriend, we were gonna watch cartoons tomorrow morning. We even got a tree. And a bunch of the—the fuckin', uh, the ornaments that you get in the multi-packs?"

"Tony, you know you're unmuted?" Natasha mumbled.

"Yep, yep," he said. "You should join us, tomorrow. You know. If you don't shoot me."

Audrey frowned. Bardot noticed that she was caught off-guard and attempted to spin out of her grip. When is this guy gonna quit? She grabbed the hem of his shirt and dragged him closer to her, and then delivered a swift punch to his nose. He staggered back, and then collapsed onto the ground.

"Tony, are you in danger?" Audrey asked, leaning over to pick up the flashlight and observe Bardot, who was still breathing, but unconscious.

He sighed audibly. "Yes," he admitted.

"Who are you talking to?" a muffled voice asked, who Audrey assumed was also coming from Tony's channel. "Tell them that I want to talk to the girl."

"Who, Natasha?" Tony asked.

"Is she the blonde one? With the roots?"

"Oh!" Tony exclaimed. "You mean Audrey," he clarified. Audrey scowled. She didn't even dye her hair blonde; this was just how it looked.

"Yeah, Audrey," said the voice. "The one who ruined my life."

How many lives had she ruined? Bardot targeting her made sense, but she had no idea who this girl was. Maybe it was the audio quality, but she didn't recognize her voice at all. "I'm coming, Tony," she said.

"No, Audrey," Steve objected. "You're not going in there alone."

Audrey shook her head, and then wanted to kick herself. They can't see you. "I'll be okay. Tony, I'm on my way. Natasha, are you able to cover the tunnels? I might just...leave Bardot here." She nudged him with the toe of her shoe. He didn't move.

"Yeah, I'll be good with him. Kate, are you alright with this?"

"Yeah," Kate said. "It's fun. This is actually a Christmas tradition in my family."

"What, trying to find escaped criminals under New York City?" Clint retorted.

"No, I meant white collar crime."

Audrey, assuming that meant it had been settled, picked up the sledgehammer and began to count the turns back to the diamond shop entrance, using her compass as guidance. When she made it to the doorway in, she scaled the narrow, metal ladder, trying not to knock the sledgehammer around as she made her way up.

Clint was waiting with Lucky and the three guys they'd found earlier, looking tired. "You sure you're gonna be okay?" he asked her.

She nodded even though she wasn't, lifting the sledgehammer in the air victoriously. "It's a Christmas miracle."

December 24, 2012 - Avengers Tower - Manhattan, NY

When she reached the Tower, Audrey wasn't out of breath, exactly, but she also wasn't ecstatic about now having to climb a hundred-and-forty flights of stairs. Still, she pushed past Tower security in the building's lobby to begin scaling the steps up. Her legs were weak and burning, but she knew that she had to move anyway—Tony had a gun to his head, and she wasn't going to let him die because she wasn't a fan of leg day.

It felt like an eternity had passed by the time she reached the common floor. Audrey took a moment to catch her breath in the stairwell, just so that she'd be able to speak when she got into the room instead of bowling over in pain.

After a moment, she cautiously pushed the door open, holding her breath in anticipation of what was on the other side. What she found was—well, it wasn't surprising, but it also was nowhere near what she'd expected.

The room was bathed in the dim glow of the fire burning in the fireplace. The red light cast a rather ominous glow over the girl who had summoned Audrey back to the Tower. For someone who had shut down all of Manhattan's power and was currently holding an Avenger hostage, she looked fairly young—maybe seventeen or eighteen. She was also wearing a Santa hat. Go figure.

"Hello," Audrey said, because she wasn't sure how else to begin the conversation. Tony side-eyed her. She got the feeling that hello hadn't been the correct answer. "Happy Holidays?" she tried.

The girl turned her gun on Audrey. "Drop the sledgehammer," she ordered, voice inordinately cheery. Audrey listened, sending the tool clattering to the floor. "Now kick it over there," the girl demanded, pointing towards the bar. Audrey did as she was told. "How's your Christmas Eve going?"

"Um," Audrey fumbled. It had obviously been bad, considering the fact that she was one misstep away from a bullet to the head, but she wasn't sure what the girl wanted to hear. If she said bad, would that just be inviting her to make it worse? If she said good would that make her feel like she hadn't done enough?

Luckily, her silence seemed to be enough to satisfy her, because she gestured broadly to the table of food. Audrey was still starving, and if she died without trying the apple pie, she was going to be upset about it. "Nice family dinner, huh?" the girl said.

"Real great," Tony deadpanned.

"Shut up before you get a bullet to the face," the girl ordered. "I was talking to the lady." Tony pursed his lips, but for once, managed to stay quiet.

"We didn't get very far," Audrey answered.

"Is it fun to spend Christmas with your dad?" the girl asked. Audrey nodded slowly. "I wouldn't know. You took my father away from me. You ruined my life."

Audrey winced. Had this girl lost her father in the Chitauri Invasion? It didn't make sense for her to be connected to Bardot, since she guessed he'd also been let out early for the holidays. "Look," she started, lifting her arm cautiously and taking a step toward the girl. "I understand that you blame us for your father's death, and I'm sorry. We were reckless while fighting last April. We were doing our best."

The girl's brow furrowed and she dropped the gun to her side. Audrey wanted to lunge for it, but she wasn't close enough, and it would risk a misfire. "What the hell are you talking about? My dad's not dead."

Audrey dropped her arm and sent a glance in Tony's direction. "He's not?" she asked.

"No, he's not."

"I know this won't make you like us any better—in fact, you'll probably hate us even more, but, uh—how did we ruin your life, then?"

The girl rolled her eyes and raised the gun again. "My name is Elise Bardot. You sent my father to prison."

Audrey resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Had the whole family come to spend Christmas in New York? Or was this just a father-daughter event? "Your dad got released from prison for Christmas, though. Didn't he?"

"No," Elise said, cocking the gun. Audrey gulped. "He didn't. My wench of a stepmother took his fortune and ran, and then he had to be broken out like some common thief." Audrey wasn't feeling as sympathetic towards the girl's cause anymore. Sure, her father was now in prison, but he'd also conspired with the terrorist group that kidnapped and tortured her. The love between a father and a daughter wasn't enough to dissuade her from her staunchly anti-Bardot position.

But Elise had a gun, and Audrey didn't, so she resolved to play along. "DotTech was involved with a terrorist organization," Audrey said slowly.

"I lost everything," Elise shouted, punctuating her words with the snap of her wrist. "My trust fund. Our summer homes. My tuition. It's gone."

"I don't know how you think we can help you," Audrey said. "I don't know how you think executing Tony Stark is gonna—is gonna fix any of your problems."

"If my father lost everything, why shouldn't he? All he gets to do now is profit from my suffering."

Audrey looked over at Tony, who she could tell was also trying not to do or say anything snarky. They clearly weren't going to be able to reason with her. So she would have to fight her. Completely unarmed. It wasn't the best excuse, but Audrey really didn't want to get shot on Christmas. Any other day, she may have accepted the risk to some degree, but not today.

She would need to get close enough to Elise to take the gun from her before she picked a fight. So if she could just—play dumb for a little bit longer, maybe that would be enough.

"I'm sorry," Audrey said, raising her hands above her head and taking a step closer. Tony coughed from his spot next to her and she looked over at him. He was giving her a look that very clearly said Stop getting closer to the girl with the gun! Audrey ignored him. "I know you're angry."

"I'm more than angry," Elise swore. "I'm feeling vengeful."

"I understand the feeling," Audrey agreed. "I also lost my father."

Elise tilted her head back to scoff, and Audrey lunged. She forced the barrel of the gun down so it was pointed to the floor and Elise grunted, squeezing the handle and firing it. A bullet flew out and into the marble floor, sending spider-leg cracks out from where it had embedded itself in the stone.

Ripping the gun from her hand, Audrey released the magazine and kicked it, sending it skidding under one of the couches.

"Ugh!" Elise growled, whipping the gun back and hitting Audrey across the face with it. She reeled at the sharp, stinging pain, but regained her footing after a moment. Elise ran towards the dining room table, where the food from earlier had now gone cold. Audrey followed her, grabbing onto her arm when she caught her, but Elise just threw her into the table, resulting in Audrey knocking over almost every dish. Including, devastatingly, the apple pie.

"JARVIS," Tony called. "Override lab lockdown."

"I'm afraid only Miss Lewis has permission to disengage the lab lockdown," the AI replied unhelpfully.

"Oh, for shit's sake," Tony whined. Audrey narrowly dodged Elise's foot to her face, and pulled herself up from the table. She was trying not to hurt the girl, just on the principle of not wanting to punch a child, but she wasn't making it very easy.

Elise ran again, this time back to the couches, where she grabbed a lamp off of one of the end tables and threw it at Tony, who barely missed it by ducking. "I hate you!" she screamed.

"I've never even met you!" Tony yelled back.

Audrey yanked off Elise's Santa hat and tossed it aside, then grabbing her by the hair and shoving her down onto the floor. "Stop it," she ordered, just as she had to Bardot in the tunnels. Elise clawed at her face. Like father, like daughter, Audrey supposed. "You cannot win this," she said. "I promise you, you cannot win this."

Elise tried to swing at her again, and Audrey caught her hand. "I hate you especially," she said.

"I know," Audrey replied. "I don't want to hurt you, though. So can you please—just—stop it."

Elise went limp, and her lip started quivering, and she let out a wail. What was it with Audrey accidentally meeting Bardot's kids during emotionally vulnerable moments?

"Can you call the police?" Audrey asked Tony, still reluctant to take her eyes off of Elise.

He nodded, fishing his phone out of his pocket.

Audrey looked at the girl, and the shattered marble floor, and the completely trashed dining room, and sighed. No ordinary Christmas, indeed.

In the end, Thor and the Public Works department had been able to get the power back on a little after midnight, right as the police began to haul Elise downstairs. They'd all given up on their holiday dinner; instead, Clint had ransacked the frozen aisle of a grocery store for pizzas and brought them back upstairs.

"Is it bad that I'm still really, really disappointed about the apple pie?" she asked him. They were sitting on the floor, backs to the front of the couch and legs stretched out in front of them, as the rest of the team stood around the tree.

"Yes," Clint replied. "You're a terrible person."

Audrey frowned.

"I'm joking."

"Oh."

"You should be disappointed," Clint said. "I make. Phenomenal. Apple pie. And a chance like this won't come again until next Christmas."

"What?" Audrey whined. "The loss of the pie wasn't even my fault," she protested.

He shook his head. "Rules are rules, kiddo."

"What happened to me being old enough to be your mother?"

He shrugged nonchalantly, taking a bite of his kung pao chicken. "I think in this exact situation, I'm more of the mom, since you're asking me to make you a pie, and I'm the one telling you that dessert is for special occasions."

"Why do either of us have to be the mom?" Audrey asked, wrinkling her nose.

"You brought it up first," Clint said.

"No, you brought it up first. I'm just repeating what you said."

"Well, what do I know?" he said, more of a statement than a question. Audrey shrugged, taking a bite of her noodles. "I don't remember my mom all that much," Clint said.

She tried to act natural. He had never shared anything personal with her on purpose, and she wanted to handle it well enough that he felt he could trust her. The rest of the team she understood to some extent, but not Clint. Not much, at least until now. "How old were you?" she asked.

"Two," Clint answered. "Car accident with her and my dad."

Audrey nodded slowly. "I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago. I try not to think about it too much, but it gets harder around the holidays." He blew out a breath. "Kinda weird, you know? To not be spending them alone."

"Yeah," Audrey agreed, looking out at the rest of the team around the tree. "It is. But it's nice."

Clint smiled fondly. "It is."

December 25, 2012 - Avengers Tower - Manhattan, NY

When Audrey woke up on Christmas morning, she went to Steve's before she went downstairs. He was already awake, and from the looks of it, had already spent some time in the gym.

"Good morning," Audrey said.

"Hello," he returned, opening the door to let her into his apartment. "Merry Christmas. Can I get you, uh, any coffee or anything?"

"I'm alright," she assured him. "Merry Christmas to you, too," she said. Feeling awkward, she added, "I really hope that today is less chaotic than last night."

Steve chuckled at that, going to retrieve his mug from the counter. "Fingers crossed."

When he joined her on the couch, Audrey held out a box for him. "Um, I have a gift for you," she said. "I felt like it would be weird to give it to you with everyone else. Like. Giving your family a gift at an office holiday party."

Her dad held up a hand. "One second," he said, standing and disappearing into his bedroom for a moment before returning with a small bag. "I have one for you, too. Go first."

She folded her legs under her so that she was sitting criss-cross, and then pulled the tissue paper slowly from the bag. Inside, she found two prints—one was a charcoal sketch of the Brooklyn skyline, and the other was a photo of the same skyline at sunrise.

"I drew it how I remembered it," Steve explained. "There was a rooftop where I used to go to sketch, before. Bucky would sit with me and smoke cigarettes because his Ma would complain if he smoked them anywhere else and we'd watch the sun come up."

Audrey nodded, trying not to cry. Every time Steve let her into his past a little more, it felt like a gift she was being entrusted with. She didn't know what else to say, so she just lunged across the couch to give him a hug.

She felt his arms loop around her shoulders, pulling her closer. The world now was so different than it had been a year ago, and Audrey was still trying to figure out her place in it. So was he. They were figuring it out together. Even though the ground beneath them kept shifting and changing, they were anchored to each other.

After a moment, she pulled back and sniffled, swiping at her eyes and hoping he wouldn't notice. Audrey gestured broadly at the box in his hands. "Your turn," she said.

He unwrapped it slowly, careful not to tear the paper. Another remnant of the 40s he carried with him. Under the box's lid, he found a compass.

"You gave me yours," Audrey said. "You might still need a compass, sometime. So here's a new one."

Steve smiled gently at it, clicking it open to find a photo that Darcy had taken of the two of them, in the park after Audrey had gotten her tattoo. "Thank you, Audrey," he said. He reached out for her hand and she let him take it. "Thank you for spending Christmas with me, too."

"Of course. I missed so many. How could I not?"

He shrugged. "You have a family."

Audrey shook her head. "You're my family." The corner of her dad's mouth turned up in a smile, and she stood up from the couch. "Should we go downstairs?" she offered.

Steve nodded. "Let's go."

In the common room, Audrey was immediately ambushed by a familiar scent as she approached the kitchen. She opened her mouth to ask, but Clint held up a hand to stop her. "This is the only time I will ever encourage you to eat pie for breakfast, got it?"

Audrey nodded obediently. "You will not regret it."

"Protein shake tomorrow morning."

She scowled, but nonetheless agreed. "Fine."

"Good. Now…" He handed her a plate holding one glorious, golden slice and a fork. Audrey didn't even bother sitting down before she dug in, instead taking a bite while standing. Clint watched her carefully, waiting for her reaction.

The pie was perfect–she knew it, and he knew that she knew it. Audrey nodded slowly. "This is amazing," she gushed. "I would eat this everyday if I could."

Clint nodded knowingly. "Obviously. I told you it was good."

"And I will never doubt you again."

He laughed. "Maybe I should start a cult. Lure people in with the pie." Natasha joined them in the kitchen, raising a questioning eyebrow. When he noticed her, Clint rushed to add, "Joking. I would never do crimes."

"Uh-huh," she said, clearly unconvinced.

"Alright, gather round, everybody," Tony bellowed. Audrey turned to find him wearing a monogrammed Santa hat and lugging a comically large sack behind him. "I'm about to put this Claus clown to shame."

"That's our cue," Natasha said, taking a sip from her coffee and linking her arm with Clint's to head over to the tree.

"You coming, Carter?" Clint asked.

Audrey looked around at the team. She knew that it was stupid to call them a family, especially when she knew so little about so many of them, but that's how it felt. Christmas morning here in the Tower felt like home—the most at home she'd been in a while. "Yeah," she replied. "I'm coming."

A/N: hi everyone thank you so much for reading! writing this made me feel like i was losing my grip on reality because it's been about 90 degrees for the last week or so where i am but i hope you all enjoyed and that my ever-decreasing sanity wasn't too apparent as you read. also please don't flame audrey for her ugg boots it was 2012….anyway let me know what you thought! and thank you all so much for reading.

also ! when we hit 300 reviews i think i'm gonna do a gifset giveaway on tumblr ? so if you also write oc fic and have always wanted an edit or smth then yeah that will be happening soon i hope!