"Okay, I'm going to point out the obvious here," Tony said. "It's been said before, but it bears repeating: Santa Claus is apparently a huge jerk."

A general chorus of muttered agreement and nodding filled the room, with Thor quietly muttering under his breath something about where he was likely to shove Mjolnir should he ever encounter the jolly old elf. As usual, all of the Avengers (and Loki, for some bizarre reason) were camped out in Tony's home theatre, and again as usual, they were loaded with food. The usual candy canes, popcorn, and Christmas cookies were scattered around along with a very large carton of shocking pink peppermint stick ice cream. Several of them had scooped out bowls for themselves, some of them covered in chocolate syrup and whipped cream, except for Loki, who had skipped the ice cream and instead poured himself a bowl of chocolate syrup, which he was proceeding to sip like overly thick coffee. The room smelled so strongly of peppermint that the scent was unlikely to go away before Easter.

"Yeah," Clint said, frowning. "In this one his behavior is… kind of inexcusable."

"The man found that one anonymous mouse wrote an opinion in a newspaper questioning his existence and therefore cancelled his visit to everyone in the place called Junctionville, including the children's hospital?" Thor said, still infuriated. "I do not care whether Albert signed his missive as 'all of us.' Santa is a despicable egotist!"

"For once we agree," Loki said grumpily. "As an egotist myself, I want him kicked out of the club. There's a line. He crossed it."

"Why did I remember this one as a sweet, cute, mouse-based retelling of 'Twas the Night before Christmas?'" Pepper asked, looking despondent.

"Because it really is cute," Natasha said, handing her a gingerbread cookie. "The underlying meaning is a stinker, no question, but the characters are all adorable, and the concept of belief in the face of impossibility is nice. Plus there's some okay songs in it."

"One sung by Joel Grey, no less," Tony said, "Broadway legend."

"I don't know," Peter said, looking up from building some kind of variant on a Hoberman sphere made of candy canes that kept falling apart despite his best efforts. "He's always just a little creepy. It's like I've seen him in something before and can't quite remember."

"Hey, kid?" Tony said, leaning towards the sphere. "Wanna see a trick?"

Tony twisted one part of the sphere just the smallest fraction of a degree, and the whole thing suddenly worked.

"Neat!" Peter said, grinning.

"See, and that's the other thing that bugged me in this," Bruce said, pointing at them. "Intelligence in this one is treated like it's a huge fault. Albert is basically told his curiosity is bad and hurts everybody. He comes to what's a completely logical conclusion by putting forward a hypothesis and asking questions, and yeah, at least in the world of this animated special, it turns out that he's wrong and Santa exists, but that's not a crime. Sometimes a hypothesis doesn't work."

"Yeah, and rather than blaming Santa for deciding to stomp off in a snit, everybody blames Albert," Tony said. "It's… anti-science!"

"So we're all coming to the same conclusion that Albert's name is meant to make people think of Einstein, right?" Bucky ventured.

"Yup," Bruce said. "He's like the mouse personification of science or intellectual inquiry or something. And apparently, that's bad."

"Taking it a bit personally, guys?" Natasha asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Maybe," Tony said, shrugging. "But there's this whole stereotype that smart people ruin everybody's fun because they use long words and want to know how stuff works and question assumptions."

"And that somehow means they cancel Christmas," Clint said. "I get it. It's the whole nerds-are-evil-maladapted-jerks thing who are only a tiny nudge away from becoming villains at any moment."

"I rather identify there," Loki said, still sipping his chocolate sauce, "though I wouldn't be stupid enough to anger Santa Claus. He's not the sort to forget that."

Steve looked over at him curiously, then at Peter, then back at Loki.

"You do realize Peter is old enough to realize that Santa Claus is just a myth, right?" Steve said.

"Oh, he's not, though he is not precisely the same as the Santa in this story" Thor assured him, suddenly looking grave. "After all, you once thought my brother and I were mere myths, yet here we sit."

"What?" Bucky said, looking at Thor like he'd lost his mind. "You're telling me there's an actual Santa? Not just that your father was the basis for the story, but an actual Santa Claus?"

"In at least one dimension of which I am aware, yes," Thor said, "though we have not met."

"Flying reindeer and elves, lives at the North Pole," Loki agreed. "Not the one in this reality, of course."

There was a long beat when everyone else in the room continued staring at one another, speechless, as Loki squirted more whipped cream on his chocolate syrup.

"Okay," Clint said slowly. "I have no way to process that information, so I'm going to completely ignore it and bring up another nit to pick about what we just watched."

"What?" Steve asked, sounding a little desperate. "Anything, please, before my brain melts down."

"What is wrong with everybody's teeth in Junctionville?" Clint said. "The town needs an orthodontist, stat. Those are the worst overbites I've ever seen."

"It's sort of cute, though," Pepper said. "It makes the Trundle family look more like the mouse family."

"Yeah, they're definitely drawing a visual parallel," Steve said. "There's actually a lot going on in this thing."

"Okay, so why are the reindeer mice?" Tony said. "Or really, more like some unholy mouse-deer hybrid?"

"To be fair, that's kind of not too far off from the original," Bucky said. "Everybody always sort of glosses over that part in Clement Moore's poem. It says, 'When what to my wondering eyes should appear but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.' Key words, 'miniature' and 'tiny.' Santa is supposed to be really small, almost like a leprechaun or something."

"Wait," Clint said, looking excited, "did we just inadvertently answer Big Bird's question about how Santa fits down the chimney?"

"It would make sense," Bruce said, shrugging. "I don't know how he'd get the presents down, but yeah, if he's tiny, he could fit."

"Oh, the bag wouldn't be much of a problem," Loki said, opening a pocket dimension and casually pulling out an extra pair of boots, a coat, three very large books, a pair of lethal-looking knives, and another can of whipped cream, which he proceed to squirt directly into his mouth.

"Is anyone else just now realizing how weird our lives are?" Steve said as Loki stuffed everything else back into what appeared to be nowhere and grinned at him.

"Nope, been aware for a while we're living a weird existence, but this is sort of the cherry on top of the whipped cream that inexplicably appeared from another dimension." Tony said. "How do you do that?"

"Magic," Loki said.

"No, really," Bruce said. "How?"

"Magic," Loki repeated.

"But there's got to be some kind of rational explanation for it," Tony said.

"There is," Loki said.

"What?" Bruce asked.

"It's magic."

"That's not rational," Tony said.

"Life rarely is," Loki said, patting his knee consolingly. "It's less logical that way, but far more interesting."

Thor belched loudly.

"Excuse me," he said.

"Yep," Tony said. "The Norse god of thunder is sitting in my house, burping, while watching Christmas movies. You might just be right, Mr. Green Jeans. Irrational, but interesting."

As the Avengers drifted towards the elevator and the helipad, Tony and Pepper began cleaning up. Loki had stubbornly refused to vanish the mess again since he "didn't want the mortals to become spoiled." He also pointed out that it wasn't only his mess, so there was no reason to hold him responsible for fixing it, which did make some sense. Tony looked at the swaying column of dishes, then at Pepper.

"So, if there really is a Santa, wanna risk the naughty list with me by letting the dishes sit here all night?" Tony asked. "I'm tuckered out."

"Same here," Pepper said, sighing. "Let'em sit."

And with that, they both settled their brains for a long winter's nap.