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It starts on a tiny backwater trading post, so small they don't even have a proper customs authority, which is kinda the point. Rocket's habit of building explosive-type things meant he often wants to buy certain things in quantities that get you seriously side-eyed in the more reputable marketplaces, and even if their rep as the Guardians of the Galaxy will usually smooth things over, it's simpler sometimes to come to these little places where people are too busy with their own explosive-buying to care about anyone else's.
Of course, that means Rocket is haggling, viciously, and while Drax may enjoy watching that like a spectator sport, the rest of them usually wander off. On this particular trip, Loki and Gamora disappeared almost immediately, which probably means they saw something sharp and deadly, because the ship doesn't already have enough hazards without having to worry about sitting on someone's fancy knife. Nebula and Kraglin have gone in search of snacks, and of course Groot would trail along after them, so it's only him and Mantis when he stumbles across it.
It's a hole-in-the-wall place, more stall than shop, and at least half the things there are obviously the sort of salvage that any self-respecting scrapper would've left behind. He's rummaging more out of boredom than anything else when he comes across the string of lights, small and colored. The nostalgia catches him entirely off guard.
The memories rush over him all at once: steadying the legs of the ladder as his mom strung the little lights on the edge of their roof, wrapping them around the railing of their porch, sitting outside on the little bench under the eaves and drinking hot chocolate on a cold night while they twinkled overhead. “Like stars,” she'd say, “a little galaxy just for us.”
They're bittersweet, but they don't sting the way they used to. Still, he finds himself mentally doing the math to convert standard time into Earth’s calendar, and while he can't pin down the date exactly off the top of his head, it isn't that far from Christmas. If he was there, he'd probably have already decorated.
“Hey Mantis,” he says, and lifts up the string of lights, only wincing a little when he realizes how tangled they are. “Wanna help me see if we can find more of these?”
In the end, they're able to find a few more strands, enough to respectably decorate the interior of the Benatar.
The reception is mixed, but, well, that's about what he expects. He bribes everyone to help him untangle with promises of making dessert, and it takes forever until Loki, who had been sitting on the sidelines conspicuously not helping aside from occasional critical commentary, waves a hand dismissively and the entire pile straightens itself out.
“You couldn't have done that an hour ago?” Rocket grumbles, and Peter can't help but agree.
“I could've,” Loki says mildly.
“So why the hell didn't you?”
“You didn't ask.”
He grins, and it's sharp with mischief. Peter doesn't point out that he's setting himself up to be asked for every little dumb thing, constantly, on the off chance that he can fix it with magic, because that's exactly what’s going to happen. For someone who's so smart, he can be pretty dumb sometimes.
Or maybe he wants to be bugged. Loki's been settling in, and the time with them has been good for him, but he's still got issues around feeling wanted despite the way they've all made perfectly clear how they feel about him staying.
But, well. Might as well start now, if this is going to become a thing. “So if I asked you if magic could help us put these up…”
Loki smiles, his ‘I’m being obnoxious but very pleased with myself about it’ smile, and says “What, and rob you of the experience?”
And actually, it's kind of a good point, not that he's about to admit it. There's something nostalgic, something traditional about hanging the lights, winding them around pillars and stringing them overhead that it would be a shame to miss.
An hour later, Peter is plenty willing to be robbed of the experience. His back aches in a way that he definitely doesn't remember being a part of this when he was a kid, his shoulders are reminding him that he spends way too much time sitting and looking up at a view screen, and he thinks even seven-year-old him was better at holding a ladder steady than Groot is. Luckily the only person he's actually tipped over is Drax, who is more than sturdy enough to fall a handful of feet onto a spaceship floor. The same can't be said of the chair he landed on, but it's a small casualty in the grand scheme of things.
The result—it's worth it. The lights fill the ship with a dim multicolored glow that makes him catch his breath, and it captures the familiar yet somehow otherworldly sense of wonder he remembers from his childhood. The one that made him almost believe in magic, back before magic was a normal thing that people around him could do.
He thinks he isn't alone in feeling that way, either. Groot’s tiny, hushed “I am Groot” is filled with awe, and Mantis’ eyes are wide and shining, and even Nebula and Loki fall silent, the absence of sarcastic quips loud as any spoken approval.
Still, spoken approval would be nice. “See, Christmas lights! What did I tell you guys? It’s pretty spectacular, right?”
“They are beautiful,” Mantis agrees, and reaches out to touch one almost reverently.
“I see why you would want to do this,” Gamora adds, and his heart swells. “Share this.”
“It is an inefficient way to light the ship,” Nebula says, but there's no heat to it.
“Yeah, it is,” he agrees softly. Then, “I made hot cocoa.” It isn’t quite right, but close enough with the ingredients they have on hand, and he even found a bag of marshmallows stashed away from their last trip to Earth. “It isn't just a Christmas thing, but close enough.”
He passes it around in the mismatched mugs they've picked up from who knows where, and for a brief moment, everything is perfect.
The trouble starts when he's telling Christmas stories, at Gamora's urging, all of them piled up on the couch or the nearby floor and leaning in to listen. He's not sure all the details are quite right, but he's got the gist of it, and it's not like anyone can call him out on the details.
Or so he assumes, anyway.
He's getting more and more animated as he describes Santa’s yearly run from the North Pole to give presents to all the good boys and girls of the world when Loki’s expression, which had gone cloudy and thoughtful a little ways into the story, suddenly clears. “Yule,” he says suddenly into the silence of a dramatic pause Peter had left in the story, sharp and sudden, like it's a eureka moment.
“Yeah,” he says, brain slowly catching up to the interjection. “That’s another name for it. ‘Yuletide carols being sung by a choir’ and all that.”
“I know this,” Loki says, like they're talking about an old friend he's met, way back when. “We celebrate Yule. In fact, I think we may have introduced your ancestors to the holiday.”
“No way,” he says. “That’s cool. So I guess Christmas is something we have in common, then?”
“Yule,” Loki says, like it's a correction. “And yes. It’s part of the midwinter festivities that the mortals would celebrate, back when we would visit Midgard. There were the feasts with the roast boar from the hunts, and the mead, and evergreen wreaths on the doors. The children would play games and sing songs.” He's started sounding a bit wistful, and Peter falls silent, because he thinks this is the most Loki’s shared with them about anything from his past, possibly ever. Certainly since he'd officially joined them. “And the goats,” he adds, which takes a couple seconds to sink in.
“Goats?”
“The Yule goats,” he insists. “Giant goats, made of wood and straw, that the villagers all sing songs around, and then burn down as a blessing upon the next harvest?”
He shakes his head, feeling his hold on the conversation slip. “That’s not a thing.”
“It certainly is,” Loki says. “Or was, in any case.”
“Christmas doesn't have goats.”
“None at all?” Mantis asks.
“No!”
“Then where do the goats go during Christmas?” Drax asks, making a face like he's trying to do a complicated math problem in his head.
“They’re all burned up, weren't you listening?” Rocket says, in the tone of voice he uses when he's just throwing fuel on the fire of an argument to keep it going for his own amusement.
“I am Groot?”
“I’m sure no one's hurting anyone, goats or otherwise,” Gamora says, and he winces at the glare she directs towards the group at large. “Right?”
“Being set on fire does sound painful,” Nebula counters, and Peter’s almost sure she's just keeping things going for the entertainment of it as well.
“I am Groot!”
“Even if they are set on fire, they ain't real goats. Loki said they're made outta wood,” Kraglin points out from where he's been mostly staying quiet on the edges of the brewing argument.
“I am Groot!”
“Not like you!” It would almost be funny how quickly he backpedals, in other circumstances. Right now, they’re halfway to a full-blown argument and Gamora looks like she wants to stab at least half of them for scaring Groot.
“Odin used to ride through the towns on Sleipnir to give toys to the little mortal children.” Loki throws out the change of subject like it's a peace offering. “It was a tradition.”
“Like Santa,” Drax says, and no. Absolutely not.
Loki looks thoughtful. “Mmm. Perhaps.”
“No!” He shouts louder than he probably means to, and the whole group stops to look at him like he's going crazy, but this is something he can't just stand for. “Santa Claus is magical, and jolly.”
“He was certainly one of those things,” Loki mutters, and his eyebrows do something complicated.
He points a finger. “And he is not your dad!”
“No,” Loki agrees, and he starts to relax. “He is a fiction who is very clearly based on my father.”
“Your dad doesn't live at the North Pole. Or wear red fur, with the beard, and the reindeer, and the…crap,” he finishes, because like half of those totally do apply, and the other half could make sense if he squints and turns them sideways. “Or elves!” he tries. “He doesn't have a bunch of elves making toys, right?”
“Many of the goods sold and traded on Asgard were manufactured in Alfheim,” Loki says easily. “So yes, by elves.”
“You’re ruining my childhood,” he manages.
“Let’s just enjoy the lights and the chocolate, and talk about traditions another time,” Gamora suggests, and the steel in her tone makes it clear this isn't a suggestion they can ignore. She looks pointedly at Groot, who still looks wide-eyed and a little scared.
Loki puts up his hands in an exaggerated gesture of surrender, and Peter huffs. “Fine,” he says at last, “but this isn't over.”
“Of course not,” Loki says quietly, but he's smiling again, this time the ‘I’m going to cause trouble and you'll never see it coming’ smile.
But the cocoa is warm, and the lights are beautiful, and it doesn't take long for the silence to grow comfortable again.
He's tired. He's tired, and they had maybe made a detour on the way back to the ship after finishing their last job and had a couple of drinks, and well. It takes next to nothing to get him singing, honestly, so together it's more than enough.
This time, though, he's racking his brain for the lyrics to Christmas carols he hasn't heard in ages. Luckily, they seem to be wedged deeper into the crevices of his brain than he’s capable of forgetting, or else they're simple enough and catchy enough to have stuck around.
“Why are you singing a serenade to a tree?” Drax asks, but he sounds more curious than judge-y even if he is giving Peter some serious side-eye.
“A Christmas tree,” he corrects. “It’s different from a regular tree.”
“How?” Gamora's humoring him, probably. It's still very nice of her to do.
“Well for starters, it's inside,” he says. “Like, inside the house. And there's lights on it, and ornaments.”
“Ornaments?” Kraglin asks.
“Yeah,” he says. “Sometimes nice ones, like, from the store, and sometimes ones that you made yourself out of like, macaroni. But the macaroni-type ones are better, because they have character, right? They aren't just generic and like everyone else's. They're personal. And under the tree,” he continues, “is where the presents go.”
Rocket’s ears prick up at that. “Presents?”
“Yeah,” he says. “That’s part of it.”
“Where do the presents come from?” Mantis asks.
“Well, some are from Santa,” he says. “But mostly they're from each other.”
“I am Groot.”
He sighs. “No, buddy. Santa’s not dead.”
“I am Groot.” He points to Loki.
Peter’s grasping for a good way to change the subject, because while it's pretty clear Loki and Thor both had a pretty complicated relationship with their dad, it's really none of their business. And besides, he isn't the kind of asshole who talks about a guy's dead dad right in front of him.
It’s Loki himself who throws him a lifeline. “I believe most gifts addressed that way are from a child’s parents, in any case,” he says. “As a way to uphold tradition.”
“Yeah,” he says, because while he isn't sure he necessarily wanted to go the Santa isn't real route right out of the gate, it's way better than the Santa is real and also super dead angle. Sometimes parenting means choosing the least traumatizing trauma.
Still, better to change the topic than dig any deeper into this hole. “So Loki,” he asks, “know any Yule songs?”
“Certainly,” he says. “But I have not drunk near enough to be persuaded to sing one,” he continues before Peter can ask.
He tucks that away for later, because if they ever end up absolutely wasted together, ‘get Loki to sing’ has gone to the top of his priority list.
“Okay,” he says, and claps his hands together. “In that case, I'm gonna tell you guys the story of Frosty the Snowman.”
It takes a little while for him to notice the gradual additions to their Christmas decor.
Not the log. The log he notices right away, because it's huge and right in the middle of the kitchen floor, and he almost breaks his damn neck tripping over it. When he looks closer it becomes immediately obvious who to blame, unless Nebula’s taken up carving obviously Asgardian runes into things.
“Loki,” he shouts, “why is there a giant stick on my floor?”
“Can’t have a bonfire without a Yule log,” is the answer that echoes back to him from another part of the ship. It’s an ominous answer, but he's picking his battles, and he ultimately decides that this is probably a battle for later, preferably when Gamora is nearby to back him up.
The other little things, though, he notices gradually. There are ribbons tied to things, the little bows precise enough he suspects Nebula even if she'd never confess, and a sock big enough that it has to be Drax’s but that now says ‘Groot’ on one side makes its way over the fireplace. The biggest one, though, is when he bumps into Gamora in a doorway, and glances up to find a perfect sprig of mistletoe tucked into the ribbons there.
She stops, too, and follows his line of sight until they're both just standing there, still a bit too close together after their collision.
“Y’know, there's something that people usually do on Earth, when they find themselves standing under the mistletoe together,” Peter says. “It’s kind of a tradition.”
“I know,” Gamora says, and she looks way more conflicted than he would've hoped, but the moment is perfect and she looks amazing framed against the colored lights. “Are you sure you want to…”
“Yeah,” he says, and he leans in slightly, covering part of the distance between them and waiting for her to meet him there.
Which she does, lashing out with a sucker punch that makes his nose explode with pain and knocks him straight on his ass.
It takes a dazed second for him to register what just happened. He's curled in on himself slightly, holding his nose which–yep, bleeding, and he pinches it and leans forward even though touching it friggin hurts. His voice, when he speaks, sounds nasal and muffled.
“Why the hell would you do that?” he asks, and Gamora’s just standing there blinking at him.
“You said you wanted to fight a mistletoe duel,” she says slowly, like he's the one being unreasonable here.
He pushes to his feet, and the world only spins a little, in a pain way and not a concussion way. “That’s not what I said, and that's not what people do under the mistletoe. Who told you that?”
“Loki did,” Mantis confirms from where she's peering at them from the other side of the doorway.
“Oh I bet he did.”
Against his better judgment, he stalks off to find said god of mischief, because no way he didn't do this on purpose. Loki is sitting on the couch, and he takes one look at Peter and bursts out laughing.
“What the hell, man?”
“You tell me,” Loki says. “I am not the one who challenged Gamora of all people to a mistletoe duel.”
“Those aren't even a thing, and you know it!” He points with one finger to emphasize his point. The other hand is still busy putting pressure on his bleeding nose.
“They are. My cousin Balder died in a mistletoe duel,” Loki says with a perfectly straight face.
And Peter is, like, ninety-eight percent sure he's just messing with them, but he can't say so, because if living with Loki this long has taught them anything about Asgard it's that it can be super messed up. And calling someone out on lying about a dead family member is not something he's willing to be wrong about, because on the teensy-tiny chance that it's true, it would make him the biggest asshole in the galaxy.
“Why?” Loki asks, and he sounds just a little bit too innocent to be believable. “What do you usually do with mistletoe?”
“Asshole,” Peter grumbles, and retreats to lick his literal and metaphorical wounds in private.
He also resolves to keep a closer eye out for mistletoe, because from the distant scuffling sounds, several of his teammates are more than happy to commit Christmas violence.
Loki doesn't apologize. For this, but also really ever.
None of them do, at least not often and not in words, and neither did the Ravagers he'd grown up with. So Peter's gotten pretty good at recognizing the ones that go unspoken, and the tree looks an awful lot like a peace offering.
It's standing in the corner, just a tiny bit too tall, the very top of it just brushing the ceiling. He runs his fingertips over one branch, and it's perfect; the prickly needles, the way they rustle as he rubs them together between his fingers, the crisp evergreen smell. It feels a little bit electric and a little bit alive in a way he's come to associate with magic, and he has no idea how Loki managed it, but then, he can't say he really understands how he does much of anything, so that isn't really a surprise.
It’s decorated, too, in a loose sense of the word. He spots several of Rocket’s grenades hanging from the branches and really hopes they aren't live. There's strings of popcorn, what he assumes must be Drax’s other sock, a somewhat alarming assortment of small cybernetic body parts, some fruit, something unidentifiable that Groot definitely made out of that sculpting clay they got him, and a handful of other assorted shiny baubles. And there, front and center, someone has raided the pantry and hung a single box of Kraft mac n cheese that must be from their Earth Food stash, strung up with a tidy piece of ribbon.
It’s so wrong and so right and so exactly his crew that he laughs, and he turns it for a closer look before letting it fall back into place.
A handful of wrapped packages have already accumulated underneath the tree, some neat, others barely identifiable and covered in alarming amounts of tape and twine.
He goes to find where everyone’s gotten to; he can hear the sound of conversation filtering in from a nearby room, so they can't be far. On impulse, he stops and makes his way to a storage closet, pulling out some old shopping bags and receipts and other scraps. It takes a while to get the effect he wants, and it isn't perfect, but hey, what is?
He finds the lot of them in the kitchen, Groot and Rocket sitting on the log that's now become something of a fixture, Nebula perched on the counter, and the rest standing and leaning and sharing what he assumes is the remainder of the popcorn strung on the tree. He makes his way over to Loki and holds out his project.
“It’s a Yule goat,” he says, handing it over. “I know it's made out of paper, but there's not a lot of straw on a spaceship, y’know?”
Drax laughs, a full-bellied laugh that nearly topples him over. “That looks nothing like a goat!” he announces, pointing and clutching his side.
But Loki smiles, and it's a small, contented smile, one of the most real they've seen from him yet. “I suppose it’ll do,” he says softly.
They set the goat up in the middle of the common area, well away from anything flammable after they've moved the rugs and the cushions and triple-checked for nearby explosives Rocket may have hidden and forgotten. Peter sets it down and backs away slowly, and then Loki waves a hand and a small green flame curls to life, lapping at the edges of the paper and twine. The soft green glow mixes with the colors of the string lights, and it's magical in more ways than one.
“I am Groot?”
“Let’s save the s’mores for the bonfire, buddy,” Rocket says, and Groot nods.
“There’s not gonna be a bonfire,” Peter says, “not in my ship.”
“Oh, there's gonna be a bonfire, you just wait,” Rocket says, but the pace of the argument is slow, calm. Contented.
“It’s not safe,” Gamora says, picking up his side of the debate like he knew she would.
“Nothing is safe,” Nebula says.
“Well if there's no bonfire, what we gonna do with the log?” Kraglin says reasonably, and there's a chorus of answers, some agreement, some suggestions.
Peter leans back and just takes it in—the friendly bickering, the colors, the tree in the corner with definitely more presents than there were earlier, and feels something new. It isn't quite nostalgia, it's a bit too immediate for that, but it's similar. The present tense of nostalgia. The realization that a moment is perfect in its own way, a distilled sense of a specific time in your life that's worth appreciating. Someone should come up with a word for that.
Maybe someone already has, and he just doesn't know it yet, but he thinks if they have, it must've been in a moment an awful lot like this one.