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Thor rubs his hand over the back of the woman sleeping next to him. “Merry Christmas,” he whispers against her ear.
Dian mumbles something unintelligible and rolls over, curling into the warmth of his body. He is so warm that she has taken to sleeping with just a sheet even in winter. The nights where he is gone see her pulling blankets out of the closet and arranging his pillows into a poor approximation of him. They are much too soft, but they do carry a trace of his scent, and she cuddles them in the darkness.
Thor runs his fingers through Dian’s short hair, attempting to tame the wild strands that stand askew after hours of sleep. “You must wake up. It is the most wonderful time of the year.”
She rubs her face against his chest. “I think you’ve been listening to too many Christmas carols,” she mutters.
“I find them festive and invigorating. A celebration of birth amidst the cold and the dark. And the egg nog is delicious.”
His endless enthusiasm elicits a smile. It was his enthusiastic participation in her research on him that had first attracted her to him. Well, that wasn’t quite true. It was his body and face that first attracted her. It was his happiness at discussing the strange base pairs in his triple-helixed DNA that made her look past the face at the brain behind it. “You put that much bourbon in anything and it’s going to be delicious.” She should have known that at any party hosted by Tony Stark, the drinks would lean more towards the nog. It had taken her thirty-six hours to recover from that hangover.
He kisses her forehead. “Come, my sleepy angel. Let us go open presents.”
“They’ll still be there in a few hours.” She had grown out of waking at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning a few decades ago.
His kisses trail down the side of her face. “Don’t you want to see what Santa brought you?” he murmurs against her mouth.
“We don’t have a chimney.” Besides, she was much more interested in kissing right now than in unwrapping presents.
“A being of his power surely does not need a chimney to enter. You sleep if you wish. I am too excited so I shall go see what Santa brought me.”
Dian’s eyes fly open as she feels him leave the bed. Thankfully, he doesn’t notice the panic on her face. Does he really believe in Santa Claus? She didn’t think to get him a gift from Santa. Why would you buy a gift from Santa for a three thousand year old alien? Surely he doesn’tactually believe and this is just a trick.
She jumps from the bed and grabs her robe, yanking it on as she hurries down the hall into the living room. The small space is overwhelmed by a giant Christmas tree. Thor had picked it out himself. He is sitting at its foot unwrapping a present. She doesn’t recognize the beautiful paper, and heaven knows she didn’t take the time to add the ribbon and sprig of mistletoe to any of the gifts she had wrapped. Confused by the early hour, the strange gift, and the beauty of the man sitting practically naked in the glow of lights from the tree that made him seem even more of a golden angel than normal, she sits down next to him as he unwraps the gift to reveal two intricately carved raven statues. She can barely speak as the beauty of the creatures hits her like a fist to the chest. They seem to be alive, with a luminosity to the feathers that shouldn’t be possible in an animal made of wood. Their eyes glitter with ancient wisdom. “Those are gorgeous.”
He reverently touches the wings of one and the beak of the other. “They are carved from twigs taken from Yggdrasil. I can feel the power in them, even though the wood is no longer living.”
Dian peeks at the gift tag, wondering which of the Avengers went to Asgard to do their Christmas shopping and then broke into her house last night to put gifts under her tree. The break-in says Natasha, but the wrapping says Pepper. Maybe Pepper put Natasha up to it. The tag says, “To Thor, from Julenissen.”
“Julenissen?” she asks, mispronouncing the word.
“It is what they call Santa Claus in Norway. I think Santa believes I would be more comfortable celebrating Jul than Christmas.”
“Jul? Let me guess. Ancient Viking festival with lots of drinking?”
He grins and pulls her closer with one massive arm. “You are very smart. How did you know?”
“Because all of your holidays involve lots of drinking.”
His laughter booms out. “Drinking and feasting and, if I’m favored by the Norns, lots of sex.”
“We’ll see about that last part.”
He grins and picks up a small box from under the tree and hands it to her. “Santa brought you a gift too.”
Dian skeptically looks at the present and opens the gift tag. “To Dian, from Santa Claus.”
With a small noise of confusion, she takes the box and unties the red and white twine that holds a sprig of holly on top of the box. The top opens and she takes out a beautiful gleaming sleigh bell hanging on a red ribbon. “Did you get me this?”
“No. Santa did.”
She jingles the bell but there is no sound.
“What a beautiful chime.”
She looks at Thor confused. “What? It didn’t make a noise.”
Now he looks just as confused as she does. “You didn’t hear that? It sounds like the bells on Asgard. I never thought to hear that sound on Midgard.”
She rings the bell again and Thor beams. Dian manages to smile. “You’re right. It is lovely.”
Thor smiles as she hangs the ornament on the tree. She looks at the small box again and turns it over, looking for any identifying mark. Surely one of the other scientists at SHIELD could do some sort of CSI kung-fu and identify where it was from or scan it for fingerprints so she would know who was behind this. Maybe it was Clint. Clint would find it hysterical to make Thor believe in Santa Claus.
A scrap of paper falls out of the box and drifts to the floor. It crinkles in her hand as she picks it up. The heavy parchment bears a short message. “Remember and Believe.”
She remembers the strange dream she had one Christmas Eve as a child. A dream with a train to the North Pole, and Santa and elves and presents and the best hot chocolate ever. A dream full of songs and the music of sleigh bells and laughter. A dream where she received the gift of a bell from Donder’s regalia. Wisps of that dream visit her every year on Christmas Eve.
Dian narrows her eyes and carefully flicks the bell. She can almost hear it chime. She looks at Thor who is smiling as he watches her.
“It is a lovely sound, is it not?”
She jingles the bell and hears the whisper of music she remembers. “It really is.”