Chapter 10: Christmas Blueberries
After everything that had happened with Sinister, Tammy had noticed that Tyler was acting a little bit different lately. He was a little more affectionate and a little more… she would have called it possessive if he wasn't so sweet.
At first, she hadn't thought much of it. Everyone had been more on edge, even with Sinister dead. Just because he was gone didn't mean he hadn't left his mark.
But when it had been a little over a week and Tyler was still watching her with this look on his face that she'd never seen before…
"What?"
Tyler blinked. "Sorry?"
Tammy shook her head and gestured toward Tyler. "What's that look for?"
Tyler raised his eyebrows for a moment and then blew out his breath. "I was just thinking," he said slowly. "You know I love you, right?"
Tammy blinked. "I… yes," she said, not expecting that to be the answer.
"That's what I've been thinking about," Tyler said. "How much I love you and want you safe."
Tammy was surprised into a smile before she leaned over and kissed Tyler gently. "Love you too," she whispered, then giggled and gasped in surprise when his response was a playful, low growl as he wrapped her up in return.
It was just a few days before Christmas when Kate and Kurt returned from their anniversary trip, all smiles and snuggles and laughter when they teleported back into the mansion, dropping off their suitcases before they popped into the hallway outside Logan and K's room. They were sure to knock on the door — just in case their friends were sleeping or something — and let themselves in when they heard "come in" and the giggling that meant the kids were there too.
In fact, all of the kids were in there, completely absorbed in playing with some Tinker Toys on one side of the room, giggling and babbling at each other. Occasionally, one of them would finish a project and run over to show it off to Logan or K with proud little smiles so that the Howletts could appropriately praise their building efforts.
"Are you done yet?" Logan asked without looking up at Kate and Kurt. "Because if not, you need better babysitters next time."
Kurt laughed at that and shook his head. "Nonsense. You're the best babysitters we could ask for, clearly," he said, gesturing at all of the kids in the room.
"You must have come right here, then," K replied.
"We just arrived," Kurt said, now looking curious as he tipped his head at her. "Why — did something happen while we were gone?"
Logan looked weary as he let out a breath. "We had a little trouble with Sinister. But Scott fixed it. Shouldn't be a problem again."
Kate glared at that news, Kurt looked concerned. "What'd he do this time?" Kate asked, looking half ready to go and grab her bow and teach him a lesson herself.
"Kidnapped the little ones," he replied. "No one got hurt, though."
"No one but you," K corrected before she kissed his cheek.
Both Kate and Kurt looked alarmed, and almost in unison on hearing about the kidnapping they glanced at Krissy, who was totally happy working with Elin on some kind of Tinker Toy creation. Kurt sat down with wide eyes as he said, "I think you'd better tell us what happened - the full story."
"Scott would probably be able to tell you more," Logan admitted. "Long and short of it is that they got snatched. He wanted to force a few of us into allowing him to ... do what he does. But it didn't go that far."
"Well, that's something at least," Kurt said quietly, a bit more subdued, before he took a deep breath and looked to Logan. "But everyone is safe; none of the little ones were hurt?"
"Yep. All clear, everyone's fine."
"So I think we'll just have to keep using you as babysitters all the same, mein Freund."
"At your own risk, I suppose," Logan replied.
Kate rolled her eyes at him openly before she made her way over to go join the kids, oohing and ahhing appropriately over the creation Elin and Krissy were working on before she asked Krissy, "Did you have a good time with Logan and K?" Her gaze never left Logan as she waited for the enthusiastic answer.
Krissy giggled and all but bounced in place. "Ja! Des! Love Wogan! Love K!"
"Of course you do, sweetie," Kate agreed, pulling Krissy into a kiss before she let her get back to her little project, still looking at Logan with one eyebrow raised and an expression that clearly read, "See?"
"Kids have bad taste," Logan grumbled.
"Her good taste is genetic," Kurt corrected him with a smirk.
"They've pretty much taken over the place," K told them. "Since it happened, they all have been camping out in here. All of them."
Charlie nodded very seriously as she tugged on Kate's sleeve. "Wuv Wogan," she said.
"Seems to me they've pretty much made up their minds about you," Kate said with a little laugh as she booped Charlie's nose.
"Doesn't make 'em right," Logan argued.
"Don't let them hear you say that," Kate teased him. "Especially not Charlie. She seems to think she's always right; isn't that right, Charlie?"
Charlie drew herself up tall and nodded. "I smart. K said so!"
"How was the getaway?" K asked, trying to shift the discussion for Logan's sake.
"Warm," Kate said with a happy sigh. "I already miss the beach and the sun."
"Sorry to hear that," K replied. "You could have stayed a day or two longer. Unless … don't tell me the shopping queen isn't done with her holiday business?"
Kate gave K a dry look at that. "Puh-lease. I was done with that before we left."
"That doesn't surprise me," she said as she bumped shoulders with Logan.
"We just wanted to get home and spend a little time with Krissy before the mob hits for Christmas," Kate explained. "That... and Nat's due in a week or two, and I didn't want to miss it."
"Yeah, we're waiting for that," Logan agreed. "She's staying here until it's over. She camped out with us for a night too."
"You totally missed snuggly movie night," K said with a nod. "Half a dozen kids, us, and Nat. Clint ran snacks."
"So jealous," Kate said with a wide grin. "That sounds awesome."
"Was this a regular occurrence while we were gone?" Kurt asked with a teasing smirk.
"The kids, yeah," Logan replied.
"Oh come on. You know Clint running snacks was constant too," Kate laughed. "We'll have to stop by and say hi to them next." She leaned forward with the sparkle of laughter in her gaze. "How much is his head threatening to explode waiting for Zoe?"
"He's … in danger more often than not," Logan replied carefully.
"He wasn't there for Gerry, so this…" Kate shook her head and laughed. "Someone is going to need to hold him up when it finally happens, and I have a feeling that someone is going to end up being me."
"Then you got back just in time," K replied.
Kate chuckled and nodded her agreement before she got to her feet and kissed both Logan and K on the cheek. "Sounds like we've got some catching up to do. Do you mind terribly keeping Krissy with you?" she teased.
"I think you'd have more trouble breaking up their little party right now. Wait until it's feeding time at the zoo."
"You love it," Kate laughed.
"Oh, but you're feeding them," K countered.
"Been a while since we wrangled the wild X-kids," Kate chuckled. "Think we can handle it, honey?" she asked Kurt, who was simply grinning at her.
"I think we can manage," he said as he took her hand in his, and a moment later, the two of them had teleported off to go catch up with the rest of the mansion residents and find out how much they'd missed.
Christmas at the mansion was incredibly busy — with all the kids, a few students, and even some of the Avengers visiting. After all, Clint and Natasha were there, and a few people had bets as to when the new little one would be arriving.
And of course, the kids were having a much better Christmas than the last one, which they'd spent separated from Elin and sad about it. Chance had made Elin another Christmas present, which the ferals found out about early Christmas morning when he came running down to their room as soon as he was awake — and before he'd even woken up his parents to go downstairs to the tree — so that he could make sure the first Christmas present Elin got was his. He'd worked hard on the cute little craft heart, and he was very proud of it.
Elin was sleepy when Chance showed up, and she gave him a tired smile and a kiss on the cheek. "Cuddle," she said, clearly not ready to get up.
"Otay," he said with a little smile as he climbed in next to her, cuddled her, and kissed the top of her head. "Merry Chris-mas."
"God Jul," she replied with a little yawn, but they didn't end up staying there long — as James woke up a short while later, cuing them all to head downstairs.
"Swedish pancakes?" K asked Chance as she got the little ones ready to head down. "Or should we do something else?"
"Pancakes!" he declared happily. "Pleeeeease."
"I'll do my best," she replied, offering him her hand to head to the kitchen. "Lead the way, big guy."
Chance proudly led K down to the kitchen, where Alex and Lorna were already up, slightly jetlagged from their trip, and Erik was completely wrapped up with Magda in the corner.
"You two don't mind if I kick you out and commandeer the kitchen, do you?" K asked, with Chance and Elin more than ready to help.
"Not at all," Lorna said with a little smile when she saw how excited her little nephew was. "Are you helping, Chance?" she asked as he was already heading over to push a stool to the counter.
"K maknin pancakes, Aunt Lor-na!" Chance explained.
"Well in that case, we'll get out of her way," Alex said with a grin.
K leaned down to whisper to Chance that he should go give his baby cousin a kiss and introduce Aunt Lorna to little James. "You can help cut up berries when you get back."
Chance nodded enthusiastically as he all but skipped over to where Erik and Magda were, planting a very careful kiss on Magda's cheek. "Hi, Magda!" he said brightly. "Merry Chris-mas!"
Magda giggled at him and held her arms out so she could snuggled him properly. "Hi, Tance," she said, and he beamed and booped her nose and let her get back to snuggling her very happy grandfather before he skipped over to pull on Lorna's hand.
"Gotta meet James!" he explained, pulling her toward Logan. "Gotta meet the baby!"
Lorna beamed as she let Chance pull her over, and the grin only widened when she saw the very tiny little boy in Logan's arms. "Oh, he's beautiful," she said softly as Alex came over to glance over her shoulder as well.
"Wanna hold him for a minute?" Logan asked, already handing him over before she could answer properly.
"Please!" she agreed with a wide smile as she tucked the little guy neatly into her arms, smiling down at him only to melt over his very small hands, picking them up with the edge of her pinkie. "Oh, he's just perfect. How old is he?"
"Not quite a month," Logan told her.
"Really? He looks younger," Lorna said with one eyebrow raised. "I would have guessed days."
"Not exactly huge parents," Alex teased. "He was probably super tiny a few weeks ago."
"And perfect," Lorna agreed, still melting all over the little guy before she finally handed him back to Logan. "We should get out of your hair. I think Chance wants to make pancakes," she said, gesturing to the little boy, who was already on his stool and mashing up berries.
"They're closer to crepes," K told them. "But it's one of the few things I volunteer to cook."
"It sounds delicious," Alex said with a wide grin. "You do this every year?"
"When I'm around," she replied with a little smirk.
"Sounds like Lorna and I should come around more often," he replied with a matching smirk as he pulled his arm around Lorna's shoulders and started to steer her out of the kitchen.
With that, K dove into her work, and it wasn't too long before she had a reasonable pile of crepes, and, to the surprise of the Christmas guests, the smell of cinnamon started to become a bit thicker as the cinnamon rolls got closer to done, too. She set up a plate for each of the little ones that was awake and then invited Alex and Lorna to do the same — seeing as she'd made sure that she and Logan were covered.
The smell was starting to attract other guests too — and no one was really that surprised that Jubilee found her way down almost at the exact moment the cinnamon rolls were out of the oven and being frosted. She and Noh both gave Logan and K respectively 'good morning' kisses and quickly grabbed a few plates before the small army that was Kate and Kurt and their bamfs could arrive to get sugared up. The bamfs were clearly excited about the Christmas breakfast and were far more awake than any of the recently arrived adults, except maybe Jubilee.
"You have perfect timing," K told her as Jubilee sat down with what appeared to be the most heavily-frosted cinnamon roll off the pan.
"It's a gift," Jubilee said with a wide grin and a shrug before she took a big bite and let out an "mmm" to accentuate her point.
And while most of the little imps were all chattering to be first, one of the bamfs was hovering near K's shoulder and waiting for everyone else to get their food before he started to chatter at her.
She fixed up a plate with both the Swedish pancakes with berries and cream and a roll and handed it to him — though she didn't let go right away. "If I find out you jumped ship and didn't bring this to her, I'll skin you."
The bamf nodded very seriously and crossed an 'x' over his heart before he took the plate and teleported away with it.
"Where is he going?" Noh asked as he helped Sying get some of the sticky icing off his fingers.
"Natasha isn't up to a crowd," K explained. "She needs her strength, and I know Clint has a coffee maker up there already. Thought we'd send up some food to go with the coffee."
"Such a sweet little demon. So thoughtful," Kate said with a smile. She was playing with a couple other bamfs, who were all wearing little Santa hats, because Krissy seemed to love playing with them by stealing their hats and making them try to get it back. The bamfs seemed to love the game too — so there was a whole lot of giggling happening underneath the table where they were playing.
"Krissy," K half sang. "I have something for you."
Krissy, still giggling, poked her head out from underneath the table with a wide grin before she climbed out, wearing one of the bamfs' hats and pulling it firmly over her ears.
"Got you something special," K told her when she sat the plate down for her — the same everyone else got... but with a little handful of blueberries added on top.
Krissy grinned delightedly and squeaked out a little, "Danke!" before she dove into her plate, while Kate was giving K such a look across the table.
"Don't worry, angel; I have something for you too," K promised before she darted off to the kitchen again, only to return a few minutes later with a massive blueberry muffin — covered with sugar. "I know they're your favorite."
"You — you are just ridiculous," Kate said, shaking her head.
"Love you too," K countered with a grin before she headed back to sit down with Logan and the little ones. "I can't help it if the little purple elf loves them. She comes by it naturally."
"Yummy!" Krissy supplied — unhelpfully — as she tried to offer one of her blueberries to her snack buddy, Sying, in the spirit of Christmas and sharing.
"See?" K said, still grinning. "There must be something in them that she needs. Extra sugar. Something."
Kate rolled her eyes at K and shook her head as she went back to her pancakes. "You're full of it," she muttered as Kurt very quietly laughed at her and tried his best not to look like he was too amused when Kate cut him a look — though that only had him laughing more.
It wasn't long before the rest of the mansion residents, including the rest of the Summers clan, had made their way downstairs, so the kitchen was fairly full. Everyone was getting into the Christmas cheer when there was a knock at the door — and Kurt quickly teleported off to see who their unexpected visitor was.
It only took him a few minutes to come back wearing a huge grin, though, this time with one arm around Kitty's shoulders as she and Peter Quill, bearing gifts, joined the steadily-growing party.
"I'll bet she'd take a bite out of your muffin," K whispered to Kate with a smirk.
"Pretty sure I'm safe, seeing as she was the one pushing me to paper the boy," Kate teased.
"I was talking about your actual muffin, pervert," K laughed.
Kate rolled her eyes dramatically. "You need to come with subtitles."
"They'd be in Swedish," K warned.
"At least I could run them through translation then. K-speak doesn't have a translate feature on my phone," Kate countered.
"I'll have to use more ridiculous phrasing then," she decided as Kitty started to make the rounds — hitting Kate first with a 'hello' hug, since she was closest.
"Long time no see," Kate said as she pulled Kitty into a warm hug. "How's space?"
"Space is great," Kitty told her with a smile. "How about you guys? How's the little elfling?"
Kate gestured over to where Krissy was contentedly popping blueberries in her mouth. "She gets bigger every day," she said with a smile before she tipped her head toward Logan. "Have you met the newest addition yet, though? Because you should."
Kitty beamed when she saw that Logan was holding a very tiny bundle, and she skipped her intended order of making the rounds for hugs to slide right up to him to peer down at the little guy. "He looks just like you!" she declared with a steadily widening grin as Logan simply handed him over to her and she immediately started to make him over.
"I'm sure you heard about him from Kurt," Logan said. "Or Jubes."
"Both," Kitty agreed, still grinning as she tickled James. "I love the name, by the way. So fitting."
"Considering? Yeah, it works for him," Logan agreed. "Her idea."
"Well, I love him," Kitty declared, snuggling him that much harder as she bounced to give Logan a kiss on the cheek.
"Grab a plate," K told her, taking James. "Coffee's fresh too."
"Thanks!" Kitty beamed as she loaded up on Swedish pancakes and cinnamon rolls and pulled Quill over as well. She was grinning through every bite as she said, "See, Peter? This is good food."
"Do you see me arguing? I'm not arguing," he said with a smirk as he bit into half of her cinnamon roll to prove his point and broke into a wide grin at the expression of betrayal on her face.
"Stick around," Jubilee said. "Annie has plans tonight."
"Her Christmas dinners are a work of art," Kate agreed, which had Annie blushing with pleasure.
"I'm adding something for the grown-ups," K said, sharing a little smirk with Logan. "Or … those that want to try it. Little bit of mulled wine."
"Sounds like fun," Quill said with a wide smile and a nod as he tried to steal another bite of Kitty's food and she phased her hand through his to grab it back.
"So, what brings you our way?" Bobby asked Kitty as he refilled his coffee mug. "If we'd known you were coming, we would have put out stockings for you or something," he teased.
"We weren't sure if we'd make it here in time, actually," Quill explained, casually leaning back with one arm around Kitty's shoulders. "Ran into some trouble with the Shi'ar earlier this month, and they screwed up my ship. Took us forever to get it back up to snuff." He pulled a face. "They've been real pains lately."
Nobody missed the fact that Tommy, who was sitting next to Erik and making faces for Magda to laugh at, sat up a bit straighter at that and shot a proud sort of smirk at his grandfather as he said, "We haven't had any problems with them lately."
Quill chuckled and nodded. "Yeah, shortest invasion ever," he said with a smirk. "But just 'cause they're not bothering Earth doesn't mean they're not being a pain for the rest of the galaxy." He shrugged one shoulder up to his ear. "It's been a busy year."
"No kidding," K muttered under her breath with a raised eyebrow Kitty's way.
"Which is why we wanted to come here and take a break and just… be with family," Kitty cut in with a wide smile.
"I'd hope you would know that you can come visit anytime, katzchen," Kurt said with a smile. "You don't have to have a reason."
"Oh, I know," Kitty said happily. "We just happened to have a reason this time. And that reason was total exhaustion. Seriously. Space is nuts!" She grinned at Quill, who was rolling his eyes at her hard.
"Well, you're the one dating a Guardian of the Galaxy," Kate pointed out with a smirk. "You brought that one on yourself, Kitty."
"Yes," Kurt said with a thoughtful look her way. "It's been how many years, katzchen? Six? Seven?" He smirked the slightest bit. "You'd think you would be used to space travel by now."
"Not quite seven," she said, giving Kurt a bit of a look when the thoughtful expression on his face deepened at that. "Hey, don't do that, fuzzy Elf. You know I don't do anything if I don't love it."
"Yes, of course I know that," he assured her, but if anything, the look was only getting worse as he turned his attention to Peter Quill. "And do you know that, Peter?" he asked, his tone light but his gaze never leaving Quill's face.
"'Course I do," Quill said easily, meeting Kurt's gaze with a look that was completely unconcerned.
"Seven years?" K asked as she leaned forward. "Really? So. Do you love it? Seems like you should. Or you'd be finding something better to do with your time." She smiled wickedly Kitty's way. "Sure glad no one's pressuring you into anything prematurely."
Kitty glared at K for a moment, but it didn't quite have the heat that anyone had expected as she said with a little smirk, "Oh, I definitely still love it."
"Glad to hear it," K replied, simply dropping it — something Kitty did not do for Kate. And though it was clear Kitty hadn't been expecting K to back down, she shrugged and decided to run with it for the time being — and simply enjoy the day without feeling like she had to explain herself.
It wasn't long before everyone fell back into the usual easy conversation as they headed to the living room, where the Christmas tree and all the presents were. Charlie and Chance went right back into their roles of "running the show" — divvying up presents and generally making sure everyone was having fun. Chance even gave Kitty and Peter Quill some of his candy from his stocking so they didn't feel left out.
They were just moving into the portion of the morning when all the kids were breaking off to go play with their new toys when Jess and Gerry arrived so that Gerry could get spoiled by his dad and Natasha. He was very proudly showing everyone his Spidey hoodie and couldn't wait for his dad to open the gift that he helped his mom pick out — a coffee mug that he saw in the store that had a picture of a dog on it that looked just like Lucky that he was determined had to be Clint's.
Jess looked a little bit stressed out about the whole holiday, but she eased up considerably after K slipped her a glass of warm, spiced wine and told her to join her next to Logan, where James was soundly sleeping through the entire affair.
"How's his first Christmas?" Jess asked once she had taken a few sips.
"Not very eventful, so far," Logan told her. "How are you holding up with all ... this?"
She let out a sigh as she gestured toward where Gerry was enthusiastically playing with the other kids. "He has way more energy than me," she admitted. "And he was a little disappointed that Clint and Nat were here this morning. I know Nat can't travel, but he wanted them at our place."
"Really? Seems like he'd have wanted to play with the mob," Logan said. "Practically the ringleader. Especially with Annie sugaring them up like she likes to do."
"At least when she does that, it's here," Jess pointed out with a smile. She leaned back and took a long sip of the spiced wine. "Mmm. That's nice."
"Traditional. And … it looked like most of the adults could use it," K explained. "Used to make gallons of this stuff every Christmas."
"Thanks," Jess said, saluting her with the glass. She looked toward where the kids were playing and leaned into Logan. Gerry was definitely trying to be the ringleader, though Charlie was the one trying to pull Bobby into joining them to go out sledding.
"Come ooooon," Charlie said, pulling on him to get him to join them. "We need Iceman!"
When Krissy got in on the pulling by simply wrapping around Bobby's leg and giggling madly, there was really no hope for him, and so he finally agreed — but only, he said, after everyone had gotten their coats and mittens on, which was a whole new adventure as their parents had to get them into scarves, coats, the whole nine yards.
"Come on, come on, come on!" Gerry was all but bouncing in place as he waited for Annie to finish wrestling Chance into his mittens.
"Gerry, mind your manners," Jess called out in a tired tone.
Gerry paused and let out a long sigh. "Pleeease," he said before he grabbed Chance's hand and started to pull his best friend outside with him. "Thank you, Miss Annie!" he called over his shoulder before the kids simply disappeared outside to play.