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When Cassie woke up, for just a second, it was a normal day. The clock next to her bed read 6:03, and she was going to roll back over when it hit her like a brick. Christmas!
She shot up, shedding her blanket and leaping to her feet in one fluid movement, but then remembered something. Her dad had explicitly told her not to wake him up until 7. That was - she did some quick maths - ages away! She stared at the clock, ticking away the minutes until the wonderful day could begin, but that only amused her for all of four minutes. To pass some more time, she tried to imagine what would occur, a pastime she had been enjoying ever since her mum had given in and let her stay over with the Avengers from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day.
Only 17 minutes into her daydreaming, there was a knock on her semi-open door. Cassie glanced over to see Pietro, dressed in an overly large Christmas jumper and shorts, grinning at her from the doorway.
"It's Christmas!" he announced, throwing his arms in the air excitedly. In a moment, they were both jumping up and down on her bed and giggling, him grabbing her around the waist and lifting her up to the ceiling.
"I've been up for ages," Cassie complained, glaring at the clock as though it had personally ensured that she would have to wait to get up.
"Why didn't you get us up? I've been up for so long that Peter chucked me out of his room," Pietro sympathized with her plight, being basically an overgrown child himself.
"Dad made me promise not to wake anyone up until 7."
Pietro looked thoughtful. "Wake them up, or get them up? There's a difference."
"Wake them up?" she tried to remember, wondering what he was planning. In a smirk and a flash, however, Pietro was gone.
Seconds later, The Smurfs Christmas Album was booming at full volume over all of FRIDAY's speakers, and Pietro was back in her room, singing along. He then held out a hand for her to hold, and they zipped to Scott's room together.
As it turned out, having two children (one 7, one 22) jumping on their beds while the Smurf's hellish screeches resonated overhead made all of the Avengers get up pretty fast. Pietro and Cassie hi-fived as the other twelve groaned, holding their heads and yelling, "Turn that damn thing off!"
Either it was playing so loudly that FRIDAY couldn't hear the desperate cries for mercy, or she just really liked the Smurfs, because it took another two minutes before, halfway through a rousing rendition of 'Christmas with the Smurfs', Vision manually disconnected the speakers for long enough to stop the record.
Clint downed a glass of eggnog in seconds, and went back for more. He didn't seem to show any signs of stopping at all over the course of the day. Tony, for once, was too preoccupied with something else to sniff out the alcohol. As soon as Cassie's back was turned, he pointed to the empty plate and glass that had held the milk and cookies Cassie had set out for Santa, and said accusingly,
"Either Santa does exist or Maximoff has some explaining to do."
For his part, Pietro was unashamed by the fact that he had eaten the food that had meant to be for Santa, but was saved from coming back with an excuse by Cassie returning, looking disappointed.
"Why isn't the main floor decorated?" She pouted, "Everywhere else is, but this is bare! You don't even have a tree." Steve and Tony shared a knowing look, smiling at her, and Sam gestured behind them to where cardboard boxes were piled precariously by the stairs.
"We couldn't do it without you," Sam grinned, watching Cassie as she ran, squealing, to the boxes and began to open them, smile getting wider and wider with each box of decorations uncovered. Once all of the festive garlands were out, the Avengers got to work.
Steve single-handedly carried in one of the largest fir trees that any of them, even Thor, had ever seen, much to Tony's disgust as he whined about how the needles were going to get everywhere. Once Steve had turned around, however, Tony took the time to wink at Cassie so she knew that he was joking, and she overheard Clint whispering to Natasha that he was sure Tony was enjoying the sight of Steve straining to keep the tree level.
Soon, each of the Avengers was busy with their own tasks. Bruce and Tony had turned their nose up at the store-bought 'tacky' Christmas lights, although Clint argued that the tackiness was the point, and set about making their own ones. This took up one corner of the large living room, far away from the tree so that the frequent flames could be quickly squashed out without setting anything alight other than the two scientists. Steve was stringing popcorn and humming along to Christmas carols, while Cassie watched him.
"What are you doing?" she asked finally, and Steve jumped slightly, resurfacing from his own little world.
He held up the long string that he had made so far, "I used to do it with my mum when I was a kid. People don't do it as much anymore, I guess." He shrugged, looking slightly wistful, but brightening up considerably when Cassie asked if he could teach her how to do them. When Tony next looked up, the two were making great progress with the popcorn while Cassie listened intently to Steve's tales of past Christmases.
Sam and Peter were watching a truly cringy movie, one of the ones that always seemed to have the same plot and the same unsmiling cast but yet always sucked everyone in. Pietro was watching it too, laughing at all of the off-point puns and terrible plot holes, but every so often there would be a gust of wind and a split second where he was gone. Two seconds after this, Bruce would be yelling about the fact that his perfectly colour coded tree was now all messed up again, but Pietro would be sitting innocently with Peter leaning on his shoulder, and Bruce would subside once more.
Vision had gone for the more traditional decorations, and was making a nativity scene with clay figures that he had dredged up from the bottom of one of the boxes. Thor seemed to have fallen in love with tinsel, seeing as he was wearing some around his head and waist, and there was tinsel covering every inch of the walls, ceiling and floor.
"Where did you even get all this tinsel from?" Natasha complained as she kicked some out of the way so that her, Clint and Bucky to see who could throw ornaments on the tree from furthest away.
When the room looked like a glittery bomb had exploded on it, the Avengers' work was almost done. The last ornament had yet to be put on, so Tony pressed it gently into Cassie's tiny hands and stepped back. Carefully, Scott lifted Cassie onto his shoulders and held her there as she reached up to place the angel on the top of the tree. Once she was down, and everyone had hi-fived at the sight of their handiwork being put to such good use, Steve yelled,
"Look what I found!"
Almost afraid to, everyone turned around to see Steve beaming proudly at them, holding a karaoke machine.
With the Christmas songs belting out, and everyone joining in horribly out of tune, they all had a whale of a time. After their final song, a moving duet of I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday by Tony and Pietro, they all agreed that they had worked hard enough to deserve the largest Christmas dinner ever eaten. Tony had spent so much on food that it practically didn't fit in the kitchen, but he waved off their protests and reminded them that this was what he had money for, really.
Bruce, Bucky and Clint were set as the chefs while the others were exiled to yet another Christmas movie. Bucky and Bruce immediately flew into a panic, all of their experience fighting battles paling in comparison to the mountainous feat of cooking for 14 superheroes. Clint, on the other hand, mooched about the room lazily, sitting on surfaces and unhurriedly throwing seasoning onto foodstuffs while reminding the other two that he had never made anything other than beans on toast, which only served to worry them more. In the end, they left him to do the many desserts while they concentrated on the perfect formula for gravy.
Not long after, although it was long enough for everyone to complain that they were hungry, everyone was sitting around the massive table and marvelling at the enormous amounts of food piled on it. Vision tentatively raised health concerns about the sheer amount of food that they were eating, and for once even Bruce told him to shut up and eat.
"After all," Bruce said thoughtfully, "what else if Christmas for?"
"Hear, hear," cheered Peter, who couldn't be seen behind the mountain on his plate.
Natasha earned a new name as the cracker queen when she won every cracker battle she was challenged to, and she ended up wearing all of the hats at once and refusing to take them off, although she gave most of the gifts (except a small sewing set which she surreptitiously put away) to Cassie. Peter won one battle, to Sam, but when he began to read out the joke he laughed so hard that in the end Natasha took it from him to read.
"Why does Santa have three gardens?" she asked the group, "So he can 'ho ho ho'!" A stony silence met this last remark, only broken by Peter's giggles, which started up again once he realised that no-one else found it remotely funny. The mocking soon turned from his terrible sense of humour to the sheer amount of roast potatoes that Wanda was putting away.
"You have to have eaten at least half of them by yourself!" Scott accused, pointing his fork at her, and Wanda shrugged, not even afraid.
"There's always one person in the group that's a slut for roast potatoes," Tony muttered knowingly, and the rest of the table nodded in agreement.
"Daddy, what's a slut?" Cassie asked innocently, and the conversation moved on incredibly quickly to when the desserts would be ready.
Thor was given the task of putting the brandy on the Christmas pudding and carrying it out, setting it alight when it was on the table. It was a shame, though, that no-one told him how much brandy to put on, as instead of a merry flame a roaring column of hellfire rose from the pudding, blackening it to a crisp before Vision once more produced a fire extinguisher ("he must carry one everywhere", Clint mused) and covered it in foam and gas.
For a second, everyone stared in funeral silence at the remnants of the Christmas pudding.
"Well," Clint started, clapping his hands and making everyone jump, "it's a good thing I saw this coming!" Without further ado, he pulled another Christmas pudding out of the kitchen, setting it alight so that it had a gentle flickering glow over it and setting it in the middle of the table. Thor applauded, looking relieved.
"I don't think I'll ever move again," groaned Clint, holding his stomach as he sprawled out on the sofa. It was a sentiment that the others agreed with, and so they decided on a small rest before the presents were revealed. Cassie insisted on everyone having a hot chocolate, and decorated them all individual cookies, even going so far as to drag Sam into the kitchen with her to make Scott's cookie. Sam and Scott stayed in the kitchen, sending her out to give the others their's, and then gifted her with her own cookie, specially decorated by them.
Previously, the Avengers had pulled names out of a hat to perform a Secret Santa, and couldn't wait to get it over and done with. The excitement almost died, however, when Tony went first, and handed a gift to Wanda. Immediately the group held their breath, waiting for her to explode at the sight of a disrespectful gift. What Wanda unwrapped, to their surprise, was a very nice, tasteful, expensive dress. She pulled it all the way out, face lighting up as she held it against her body before hugging Tony tightly.
"How thoughtful!" she gushed.
"That's not everything," Tony smirked, and Steve dropped his head into his hands. Wanda's face dropped as she discovered what the rest of the present was...a toilet shaped teapot. "What on earth?" she queried, turning it over and over in her hands.
"I made it myself!" he grinned, looking happy even as he tensed as though ready for a fight. It was almost a Christmas miracle, Sam mused, when instead of attacking him Wanda began to laugh, rising in volume as the others joined in too.
"Thank you, Mr Stark," she giggled, "for the best Christmas ever."
Settling into the familial mood, the next set of presents were unwrapped. Steve had drawn Natasha's name, which led to a terrible struggle on his part as he tried to think of the perfect gift. He had asked Clint, who had been horribly unhelpful, and even gone so far as to google 'gifts for girls', although none of the presents seemed anything like something Natasha would want. In the end, Natasha had taken pity on him and sent him a link to a set of daggers that she wanted. As a side gift he had drawn her looking badass as usual, which she loved.
Pietro went next, handing his gift to Clint. Clint looked worried as he unwrapped it, tensed and ready to leap back if it exploded. When he opened it, he immediately shot up and yelled, "I've wanted this forever!" The rest of them crowded around to see what it was that had him so excited, and what they saw was an X-Box game that Clint had been going on about unsubtly for weeks.
"Look underneath it," Pietro prompted, and Clint reached under it to find a fake wizarding kit for pulling tricks on friends and a few bags of snacks. Underneath those was a note, which Clint read out to everyone.
"'Bet you didn't see that coming'," he shook his head, "I thought it would be a bomb or something."
"Merry Christmas," Pietro shrugged.
Peter had also had a lot of trouble with his Secret Santa, because he was getting for Sam. What he had ended up getting was a load of protein shakes and weightlifting equipment. Sam looked shocked for a second, glancing at Peter confusedly, as he attempted to explain himself, "You're so macho and I'm so gay and I panicked!"
Sam, for his part, had got Vision a joke book, because he really needed a sense of humour. Rather than taking offence, Vision perused the book with great interest and began to spring the jokes on people at random moments.
Snarkily, Wanda had got Steve an old vinyl player and some records to go with it. "Because you're an old man," she smiled cutely. Her plan backfired slightly when he immediately loved the records and began to wax lyrical about them.
"You're becoming a hipster, Steve," Tony mocked.
"Shut up Tony, I listened to these records before it was cool!" Steve shot back.
Natasha bought Scott a smart suit, winking at Cassie as she explained, "You look like you're competing for dad of the year."
"Thank you," Cassie whispered, just loudly enough that everyone heard her.
The whole team rued the day that Clint bought Thor his gift, a disgusting Christmas jumper and unmatching tie which he immediately put on so that he clashed horribly. It wasn't until he discovered the fact that the jumper flashed lights and the tie played Christmas music that the really regretted it, though, because he kept pressing buttons so that he came with his own light display and discordant music.
"I knew you'd like it, buddy," Clint clapped Thor on the back.
Unsure of what to get Peter, Bucky had gifted him with an old typewriter of his, and although he was happy about it he was very confused as to why Peter liked it so much.
"It's junk," he frowned.
"No!" Peter cradled the typewriter to his chest, acting as though he was afraid that it might be hurt by Bucky's words, "It's a relic!"
"Does that make me a relic?" Bucky asked, seeming genuinely interested and not at all insulted, but Peter went bright red and squeaked a few times before going silent.
Thor's present for Pietro was rather haphazardly wrapped, more sellotape than paper and squashed numerous times by either Thor or Mjolnir, but the contents of hundreds of oreos and poptarts were mainly undisturbed by this and Pietro was incredibly pleased with it.
The present Bruce opened, from Vision, was 'the gift of nothing'.
"You said you didn't want anything," Vision explained, face straight. Bruce looked at the package in his hand and then back at Vision, building up the courage to thank him for his 'gift', when Vision broke into a smile and brought another present from behind his back.
"Looks like you didn't need that book," Sam congratulated Vision, as Bruce ripped into his real present. There was a collection of papers on gamma radiation with notes by Vision, and a kid's science kit that Bruce and Tony immediately and gleefully began to play with, creating muffled explosion sounds from behind the sofa.
Bruce got Bucky, who would probably have been happy with just beer to be honest, books, and Bucky was incredibly grateful for the effort that had been put into it.
Finally, Scott gave Tony his present. What he produced was a build-your-own stripper pole, which Tony wanted to set up right there and then. It took a lot of persuasion on Steve's part to stop him, and still Cassie asked, "Daddy, what's that?"
"A pair of stilts!" Scott covered up brightly.
"Can I try?" she pleaded, and Sam nearly choked on his eggnog.
To distract Cassie from the 'stilts', Tony led her outside to where he had rented twelve reindeer and a sleigh. Sitting atop the sleigh, swearing under his breath, was Clint in a Santa suit. Cassie screamed and ran over to him, jumping on his lap and hugging him tightly, while Thor, who seemed at least as excited, set about hugging each of the reindeer in turn and introducing himself to them by saying, "You are the great god of winter's mighty steed and I salute you. I, myself, am Thor, son of Odin..."
The rest of the Avengers stood back, shaking their heads in laughter and trying to stop Clint swearing every five seconds. Clint then picked up a massive stocking from the bench beside him, filled with absolutely loads of cute gifts such as cuddly toys and dolls.
"I thought we said only a few each?" Scott asked, looking to the Avengers who had planned the stocking and filled it for her. They all looked slightly ashamed before realising that none of them had got her less than five gifts.
With the Secret Santa out of the way, the final thing to do was the couple presents. Pietro got Peter a shirt which said 'This is what the world's greatest nerd looks like'. When Peter read it, he laughed aloud, shaking his head, but soon turned to blushing as Pietro muttered, "Well, it is true."
To cover up his blush, Peter handed Pietro his gift. The first thing that he got was a make your own chocolate pizza, which made his eyes widen as he read the ingredients list and imagined what it could be. What was underneath the pizza kit confused him, though.
Peter laughed as Pietro lifted up the shoes and smiled in bemusement. Pietro raised an eyebrow at his boyfriend, knowing an explanation would be forthcoming considering the amount of shoes he went through.
"I designed them myself," Peter smiled proudly, "and they won't wear out!" As Pietro engulfed him in a hug, Sam and Wanda shared their gifts. Sam had got Wanda some perfume that looked and smelled incredibly expensive, and Wanda had got Sam one of the blow-up hamsterwheel things which could be used on land or water, which he was so eager to try out it took her sitting on him to stop him leaving right there.
Clint got Natasha an arrow necklace, which he explained could obviously be used as a weapon.
"Obviously," muttered Bruce, wondering how his friendship group had become this, while everyone else congratulated Clint on how amazing he was at presents. Any sense of pride in Clint they had, however, was gone when he opened his present from Natasha. Lingerie and a leather paddle.
"What, it's a spatula!" she grinned, trying and failing to look innocent. Tony and Pietro at once mocked Clint for this, an experience which would probably have led to someone receiving bodily harm if Natasha hadn't calmed Clint by leaning in and whispering, "I'll model it for you later."
Steve's gift to Tony, at first, seemed rather impersonal. It was a load of safety equipment, which anyone could have got, but it couldn't be just anyone that could lean in to Tony and make him blush with one sentence. "So you don't blow yourself up in the lab, I prefer you alive and unharmed," Steve whispered, and Tony nodded with a promise to be more careful. They became even more 'relationship goals' to Pietro and Peter when Tony also received a mug which said 'Trust me, I'm an engineer, assume I'm never wrong'.
"You always assume I'm wrong," Tony accused Steve, trying to draw attention from his blush, but he couldn't get it to go away.
Tony seemed unnaturally nervous as he stood up to give his gift to Steve. Wiping his hands on his trousers, he picked up a surprisingly small box, and handed it to Steve.
"Oh, Tony," Steve sighed, opening it to see a beautiful ring, "I told you not to get me anything expensive."
"I didn't!" Tony defended, rather pale, "I'm giving you myself. You can have that for free!" Steve was speechless, still staring at the ring, and Tony began to babble. "You don't have to say yes, it's just it would be legal now and I just really needed to show you how much I love you. I love you forever, in case you didn't know, I love you to the moon and the stars and Asgard and back, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and -"
Just then, an inharmonious rendition of 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' began to play from Thor's tie, shocking both Tony and Steve out of their stupors.
"Thor, we were trying to have a moment!" Tony sighed, but his voice was still shaking slightly and he ran a hand through his hair desperately, turning back to Steve.
Before he could begin to talk again, Steve's mouth was on Tony's, joking, "I didn't know anything could make you nervous." Louder, to the rest of the team, he announced, "Of course I'll marry you Tony!"
Cassie, half asleep on the sofa, opened one eye to look up at the two beaming at each other and declared, "Best Christmas Ever!"
Looking about at the family scene, no-one could disagree.