Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Marvel Studios, Disney, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Man, I get all caught up with my writing and within the next week it's undone by end-of-the-semester bullshit lmao. C'est la vie.

April is going to be another weird updating schedule month, I can already tell. I am also going to be unable to update from late May to early-June, so I have a question to ask you guys: since we're in the home stretch, would you prefer weekly updates or the absolute chaos of a schedule where I focus on this story and get it done before late May? This would be potentially 2-4 chapters a week. I'm completely fine with the outcome either way, but I want to leave it up to you guys. The downside is if I do the latter option, I've been beginning to plan out a sequel, but it probably won't be posted until ~August either way, which means more time for you guys to wait on it until then. Idk, think about it and tell me what you think.

Chapter title comes from Last Christmas by Wham!, of course hahaha.

As always, hope you enjoy,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~primis, omega, superhero, genius~

~somebody to love~

~chapter 28: last christmas~

True to Clint's (and the news') word, the blizzard that came in was indeed as bad as the one on Valentine's Day of last year.

It was so bad, even, that Bélen closed down the restaurant until after Christmas, something which she rarely did. Penny didn't really get to enjoy the possible extra patrol time as Spider-Woman, however. She went out on both the 23rd and the 24th, but only in spurts of a couple hours at a time. Like Tony during their talk on the balcony, she had to actively fight to make sure that she had feeling in her fingers. Many f the people who she helped also told her that, while they were thankful for her efforts, they really would've rather she'd stayed inside than help them. The exchanges were a little baffling, albeit they did warm her heart: most of the people of the city cared for her as much as she did them.

On Christmas morning, she woke up in a pile of her own drool. Grimacing, she wiped off her mouth with the back of her hand (gross) as she sat up and checked the time: it was just after eight o'clock.

She hadn't had any nightmares last night. It seemed like a gift to her from the God she didn't really believe in anymore, and she was going to roll with it.

As she sat up and stretched, JARVIS said from the ceiling, "Good morning, Delilah. I am glad to see that you are up. Boss instructed me that if you did not wake up in another ten minutes, I was to wake you up myself."

She snorted. "He's really one for Christmas, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is. Breakfast is going to be held at eight-thirty on the communal floor."

"Alright. Tell him and the others I'll be there."

She went into her bathroom to use the toilet, brush her teeth, and wash her face. When she was done, she went back into her room and took out the brown sweater Natasha had gotten her, putting it on over her raggedy t-shirt and her flannel pants. Today in particular, it seemed to fit around her nicely. Maybe it was just because she was in a festive mood for the first time since...yeah, she didn't know when.

That festive mood only increased in its intensity when she got downstairs. Breakfast was pretty much ready. Unlike Thanksgiving, there was way more food than even she and Steve could polish off after the others eat spread out. There were scrambled eggs, toast, pancakes, breakfast meats, hash browns, cinnamon rolls, fresh fruits, juice, milk, and coffee, but all in giant portions – as if that many things wasn't already enough. It just about made her eyes fall out of her head.

"Wow," she said.

Bruce, who saw her first from the dining table – they were actually using it for once instead of eating on the couches like a bunch of heathens, it seemed – smiled and waved at her. "Hey there, Delilah. Happy Christmas."

"Happy Christmas," she said, sitting down as all of her soulmates gave her their greetings. She lifted an eyebrow at Tony. "Please tell me this is the most you went out on."

He scowled. "Excuse me, I made the eggs, that was it."

"That was all that we trusted him with," Natasha stage-whispered.

He pointed his fork at her. "Hey, I take offense to that."

"I meant you footing the bill," Penny said, interrupting them before they could get into it.

"Oh." Tony blinked. "Sorry, no."

Penny groaned, practically lowering her face into her plate. That was something she'd been worried about for the past several days. She could only imagine how many gifts he'd gotten them all.

"Let's not worry about that now," Steve said, trying not to laugh. "We'll open up presents after we're done eating."

She helped herself to pretty much everything except the juice, milk (save for pouring some of it into her coffee), and pork meats, silently impressed and grateful that they'd cooked up a sizable selection of non-pork substitutes (there was chicken and turkey sausage, turkey bacon, and even vegan bacon, however that worked). It all tasted wonderful. The spices in the meats were balanced out perfectly, since that could be a problem when your tastebuds were just as enhanced as every other aspect of your body. The pancakes, one of Sarah Rogers' recipes that she'd passed down to her son (and one of the only things he knew how to make), were fantastic. And the coffee was brewed just right.

She dug into the food, eating it like it was her first meal in days as the others conversed around her. She participated in the conversation, too, but one of the things she had always done best was sink into the background. Nobody had ever expected shy, quiet Penny Parker to be Spider-Woman so many years ago, not even her friends. And the others all knew her well enough to know not to force her into the conversation unnecessarily.

...This time even six months ago, she would've thought that they perhaps knew her too well.

But that biting edge to her thoughts wasn't there right now, except outside of the reminder. Right now, all she was...was happy to be here. It was comforting, knowing that she wasn't spending her Christmas alone again, like she had last year. That she had people to spend it with, almost like in the old days.

"Alright," Clint said once they were all pretty much stuffed, even her, practically grinning from ear-to-ear. He smacked his hands together. "Presents!"

Penny laughed, in equal parts because she was amused and mortified. "Oh, God. You're just as bad as Tony about Christmas, aren't you?"

"Hey – " Tony started to protest.

Clint gestured to the Christmas sweater he was wearing, which was green but had the words "MERRY CHRISTMAS, YA FILTHY ANIMAL" written on it in white. "This didn't make it obvious?"

"...Right," she said as she started to laugh harder. "My bad."

They left the dishes on the dining table for now to settle on the couches. Tony and Steve had gotten a Christmas tree – an actual Christmas tree, one cut down from a farm and everything. And while she and Harry had done the same after they'd gotten married, it was still something she had to wrap her brain around, since Ben and May had had a plastic one due to her asthma as a kid – four days before the charity gala, and it was decorated nicely. There were also more than plenty of presents underneath the tree, and perhaps that should've been her indicator Tony really had gone above and beyond for them all. Even if he'd gotten them all the same amount of presents that they had each other, which was one to three, with his wealth...

"I call dibs on playing Santa," Clint said.

"You're a thirty-five year old child, so that makes sense."

"Shut up, Nat." Clint picked up one of the presents meant for her and threw it at her, indirectly answering Penny's silent question of just what the fuck he had meant by saying that. She figured that was something that came with not being the only child in your family, because the gift-giving had always been more of an egalitarian event in the Parker household. Anyways, Clint dug around in the pile of presents, until he picked up one of them. "This is for you, Delilah."

Unlike Natasha, he simply handed the present to her. It was a small, rectangular box, and it was from Bruce, so she figured it couldn't be too bad. Sure enough, when she carefully unfolded the wrapping and opened up the box, she chuckled as she saw that the gift was a set of science flask earrings – definitely inexpensive from the looks of them, but also to her tastes. "Thanks, Bruce."

The male omega smiled. "I thought you might like them," he said. "There's another one for you in there somewhere..."

"Found it," Clint spoke up. Again, he handed the present to her.

This one was a coffee mug. According to what the box said, it was one of those ones that changed when hot liquid was poured into it. Specifically, since the mug had the constellations on it, it would display their refined drawings, the ones that you saw in a textbook or something and couldn't possibly imagine how ancient people had gotten them from just balls of gas and invisible lines. She loved it. "Thank you, again."

"You're welcome. Just be careful not to put it in the dishwasher. It'll get ruined if you do."

"Right."

Bruce, since he took care of the topmost greenhouse garden inside the building, got new seeds to plant from Natasha. They were heirloom seeds, the kinds of which Penny was sure would taste delicious in the dishes he made, including his salads – she swore, while she liked the salads she could get at restaurants and the like, his were on another level entirely. "I've been wanting some of these," he exclaimed, happy. She didn't think she'd ever seen such a genuine smile on his face. Like herself, the universe had not exactly been kind to him.

"Glad I picked out the right kinds, then," Natasha remarked, crossing her legs as she readjusted her sitting position.

Steve got a luxurious rare hot sauce collection kit from Tony, which made him sigh with exasperation as he hung his head a little. "Tony."

"You need to work on your spice tolerance, Cap."

"My spice tolerance is fine."

"You grew up in the '20s and '30s. By definition of that, your spice tolerance is not fine. Not to mention, do you know how much milk you drink when we have Indian food?"

As the two men bickered, Penny glanced curiously over at Natasha. She didn't think the present the female alpha had opened nor the one Tony had were ones she'd gotten them. But, she was kind of interested to see what they had –

"Delilah, this is for you. From me."

She took the proffered box from him. Just from how flimsy the cardboard felt, it was some sort of clothing item. Oh God,she thought, side-eyeing his sweater as he went back over to the hoard of gifts. How bad is this going to be?

The answer was no worse than his. It was a dark blue sweater, Hanukkah-themed, with white Stars of David and zigzags on it in the design there would be on a Christmas sweater. Besides the Stars, the other big indicator that it was a Hanukkah sweater was the large-ass dreidel on it, with the caption of "YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND."

"Really, Clint?"

Clint cackled at the expression on her face as she looked past the sweater to glare half-heartedly at him. "Come on, turn it around so everyone else can see," he encouraged as all eyes landed on her.

Tony started snickering too while Steve hid his smirk with a hand to his mouth and Natasha rolled her eyes. "Okay, now you gotta try that on," he said.

Penny pouted. She folded the sweater to put it back in the box. "No."

"You've got to," Tony repeated.

"No."

"Please, Delilah?" Clint piggybacked, although his smirk gave away how he truly felt about the matter.

...It was too easy for her to give in to them. She sighed. Loudly.

Rather than going to the bathroom to change sweaters, since she still had her t-shirt on underneath, she took off Natasha's brown sweater right there. She grabbed the hem of her shirt to prevent it from riding up too much. The brown sweater off, she folded it up and put it in the box the ugly Hanukkah sweater had come in, then put on the other one. She smoothed it out under the palms of her hands once on, then crossed her arms stubbornly. "There. Happy?"

Too late, she realized that Tony had his phone out. Her eyes widened as she heard a quiet "snap." "Now I am," he replied smugly.

She gaped at him. "You did not just take a picture of me!"

"I believe I did."

"Delete it!"

"Alright." He held up his phone to show her that he was doing so. Then, once he was finished, he cheerily added, "It's not like I need a copy of it on my phone, anyways. It's already been backed up to JARVIS' hard drive."

"What?" Penny casted her eyes up at the ceiling. "JARVIS!"

"I will delete if you want me to, Miss," the AI responded.

Tony spluttered, but he needn't have worried. After letting her teeth dig into her bottom lip for a moment, she said, "No, it's alright."

If she was going to stay after her suppressants wore off and reveal the truth, she was going to need to get used to having her picture be taken again. To seeing herself in pictures again, since all of the ones she'd had of herself had been deleted from existence, including her baby pictures...

She blinked back the tears in her eyes. Why was her body trying to get her to cry right now? It was Christmas. She was supposed to be happy, not reminiscing in the impact of a decision she couldn't – wouldn't even if she could – take back.

They got back into the swing of the opening of gifts. Her next gifts came from Natasha. The female alpha had gotten her a weighted heated blanket large enough for her bed, and it felt comfy as fuck, along with some small electric candles, small enough that she could probably put them along the rim of her bathtub. "I thought you might like to have some candles that were unscented and long-lasting," she explained.

Penny felt her cheeks flush. "Yes, thank you."

Steve...had not gotten her anything. He'd made something for her. When she took it out of the wrapping, she couldn't help but let out a noise of disbelief as she examined the medium canvas painting. "Steve, you put way too much time into this," she complained. The picture was of a close-up view of the New York City skyline, complete with a silhouette of a woman swinging from one of the buildings – her.

Of course, he'd made paintings for them all, that was his thing for the year. But it seemed like there was so much minute detail in hers, down to the shading of the windows.

"It didn't take me as long as you're probably thinking," he said. "Still..."

The only gifts left by this point were hers from Tony and the ones she'd gotten her soulmates. Bruce had already opened the presents she'd gotten him – well, them. She'd gotten Bruce a 2,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of a space observatory, and had made a music box for the Green Guy. He didn't really get to come out all that much, for what she knew were understandable reasons. But the flash of green that had briefly ignited Bruce's eyes as the music box, built to accommodate the Hulk's proportions, that same green flash she was pretty sure she only saw from time to time, told her that he was probably more aware when he wasn't out than any of them thought. It also told her, judging by how Bruce had let out a short chortle, that her gift had gone over well.

Not getting closer to them, either of them, was something she wanted to change going forwards. She hadn't done so because she hadn't trusted Bruce, and understandably so, but that...needed to change in the future. Even without everything else, if she was going to stay, it did.

She held onto the small box Tony had gotten her, the only gift he'd gotten her, waiting. "Are you going to open that?" Clint asked, gesturing to the gift with a jerk of his head.

She drummed her fingers against the wrapped box. "I'll wait. You guys go first."

Nervousness fluttered in her stomach. These were her first gifts to them. Her first actual gifts. Even though she'd been raised in a lower-middle class household and she and Harry had never really done any of the rituals, she knew how important the first gifts to an alpha from their omega were. People didn't really follow the courting rules nowadays – notthat that was what she was doing, indicating that she wanted to be courted, as she'd specifically made them off-the-nose enough to not arouse suspicion.

But...

Tony was first. "Steampunk cufflinks," he announced as he held one of them up. They were designed with some of the mechanisms of vintage watches in mind with emeralds. His birthstone. "Did you make these yourself?"

Penny was unable to say anything. All she could do was nod.

Tony grinned. "You're admonishing Steve for the time he put into your gift when these..." He whistled, putting them back in their box since he wasn't wearing a suit to put them on. "I can't even begin to imagine how much time they took you."

They'd taken her two weeks. Several days for the design, then even more time to build. She was used to building small things with her hands, but she'd wanted to make sure everything had been just right.

She wasn't going to mention that, though.

Natasha was next. She took the letter opener, made in the shape of a sword just like an antique one, out of its box and twirled it around effortlessly with her fingers. The flashes of violet blue – tanzanite, which was her birthstone – caught everyone's eyes. "Wow," Clint said. "Let me see that."

Natasha handed it to him wordlessly, without even looking at him. No, she had eyes for one person only. Penny. "It's beautiful, Delilah," she said simply, a smile of equal kind playing at her lips. "Thank you."

Penny let out a breath she hadn't even known she'd been holding. She returned her beam. "You're welcome."

Abruptly, Clint handed Natasha back her letter opener. "My turn," he went gleefully. He pretty much massacred the wrapping paper in his quest to open his present. When he opened up the box, his eyes sparkled with mirth. "Holy shit, Delilah, how did you read my mind? I've been needing a new one of these." He held up the pocket-sized multi tool. Like Tony's and Natasha's gifts – and Bruce's/the Hulk's music box too, although she'd chosen one of the other December birthstones for them, turquoise – she'd managed to embed an alexandrite gemstone into the hilt. And God, she did not want to mention how hard that had been to figure out where to place, much less cover in a coating to make sure it wouldn't get scratched and then put there. "It's even better than my current one, too!"

"JARVIS told me you might need a new one," she admitted. He'd helped her with brainstorming ideas when she'd been going out of her mind, trying to figure out what to get them all.

But now...

The only person left was Steve.

This gift was the one she was the most worried about. It made her fidgety, as she readjusted how she was sitting on her end of the couch, Bruce being on the other end. She set down Tony's gift on the coffee table to fumble with her fingers.

Please don't hate me for this, she thought. Please, please, please...

Steve, like her, was careful with his wrapping paper. They'd both been raised in households where even wrapping paper could be expensive, and there were just some habits you couldn't shake. She watched him open up the gift box, and her heart was pounding in her chest, so hard that he sent a cursory glance her way even before he looked down to see what she had gotten him.

"A necklace," he said as he took it out.

Except, it wasn't just any other necklace. She knew he knew that even before he caught sight of the most important piece of it. It was a Celtic cross pendant with a small ruby in its middle. The pendant hung down from the chain, which he held in his hand to show it off, and she watched his face slacken with shock. There was an engraving on its back, which was facing him. A set of numbers.

32557038.

Bucky Barnes' serial number.

His gaze tore away from the necklace and up at her as his eyes quickly filled with tears. Penny had no idea if this was a good thing or a bad thing. She knew she probably should've asked him if he'd be okay with her engraving that number into the pendant before she'd done it. But she also knew that he had pretty much nothing of his best friend left. His dog tags had gone with him when he'd fallen from that train. When he'd died.

And yeah, she'd erased herself from existence, but she at least still had photos of all of her loved ones, save for Matt and Wade. She still had her wedding ring, the one Harry had given her. She still had a piece – pieces – of him through the pendant of ashes which was strung on the chain which hung from her neck along with her wedding ring.

Steve didn't have any of that of Bucky.

There was a silence in the air as the two of them looked at each other. Nobody said anything – well, Clint tried to ask what was going on, but one glare from Natasha shut him up.

Penny prepared herself for Steve's rage. She mentally started to plan out the litany of apologies she was going to have to make.

But then Steve stood up, and he winced as he did so because he wasn't entirely healed from his gunshot wound yet. And he walked over to her, and the next thing she knew –

His arms were wrapped around her, tightly. Almost too tightly to breathe.

Her nose was pressed up against his neck, right where his mating gland was, and all she could breathe in were the pheromones of a happy alpha. She was sure if she pressed her nose into the gland, those pheromones would flood the room.

"Thank you," Steve murmured into her ear, his voice heavy with emotion. "Thank you, thank you, thank you..."

Penny felt herself almost go boneless in his arms.

Last Christmas, she'd spent the holiday alone. She hadn't had anyone to spend it with, nor had she the one before that. And those Christmases had been awful, plain and simple. She'd missed Harry, her alpha. She'd missed everyone else she'd ever known, too, but that was a redirect she could think about later.

The point was, she'd craved the touch of her alpha. She'd craved the pheromones that were all she could currently smell right now. Words couldn't even begin to describe how good it felt to have both right now. It was scratching an itch she hadn't even known she'd had. And when she inhaled deeply as Steve let her go –

Her other soulmates were happy, too. She hadn't fucked up on their Christmas gifts, either. They and Bruce were just being quiet to give her and Steve their moment.

They'd gotten her gifts to show their appreciation of her, just like she had them. Tony's she still had yet to open, but she didn't doubt it would be something ridiculously expensive but perfect, all in one.

...Shit, now she really was crying.

Hastily, she wiped at her eyes. "Y – yeah. I know it's not the real thing, it's not even an imitation of the real thing, but – "

Steve shook his head. "I wouldn't want an imitation of the real thing anyways," he told her. "It's perfect."

She was going to say something else to that. What it was, she didn't know.

Maybe the truth?

Christmas was all about gift-giving and miracles, right? Wouldn't that be a miracle, to tell them what she really was to them? To tell them her actual name, so they didn't just keep on calling her Delilah all the time? It was a stupid idea, because she hadn't even gone off the suppressants yet, and it would still take another two weeks after that for her scent to kick back in and act as the proof to her tale. A blood test would only show that she was an omega, nothing more.

There was no time like the present, after all.

Jesus, that sounded cheesy.

How would she even begin to tell them, though? "So, let me open Tony's gift first, but I need to tell you something important...the truth is, my name isn't Delilah, and I'm not a beta. For the past year and a half – more than that, really, but specifically since the Battle of New York, I've been taking suppressants because..."

A distinctive thud from several floors above made her jolt in her seat and her mind break from its current train of thought. She, Steve, and Bruce all looked upwards worriedly. Generally speaking, things crashing down from the sky had not meant good things for them in the past.

"What was that, JARVIS?" Bruce asked.

Tony got to his feet without saying anything. Natasha straightened her posture. "What was what?" Clint asked at the same time as both of them.

"According to my camera feed," JARVIS began to announce. He changed the TV from the A Christmas Story rerun it had been playing to footage of the helipad in live time. A familiar figure stood there. "Thor has just arrived after landing in Central Park approximately five minutes ago."

Word Count: 4,300

Next Chapter Title: it had to be you