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‘‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the base, voices could be heard, speaking many a word. The scientists gathered, gifts in hand, hoping to have fulfilled one another’s demand.

A Secret Santa, Einstein had suggested, and so it would be, Churchill requested.

We turn our attention now to days that have passed, where final decisions on gifts were to be cast…

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Out of all the Super Science Friends, Churchill, it seemed, had drawn the short straw. What one earth was one to buy the world’s original chemist? He thought for a while, but after little success, decided there was only one thing for it…

“Marie. You’re a woman. What does one buy a woman for Christmas, exactly?” He asked. Marie was not in her laboratory, as he had expected, but in her bedroom, idly zapping spiders off the wall with her radioactive ring.

“How about a lock for her door, to stop unwanted visitors barging in without knocking?” Marie suggested dryly, letting her arm fall to her side. The force of this action rattled the bed frame, and Churchill found himself taking an involuntary step backwards.

“No need to be so grumpy, Marie…I was only asking. You are the resident expert at….woman things, after all.” He said, a slight hint of awkwardness in his words.
“It depends on the woman. Not all women like the same things.” Marie said.
“Really?” Churchill was surprised.
“Yes.”
“Well what would you like, then?”
“For you to leave me alone.”

Churchill sighed. “Please help me, Marie. Look, I’ll even give you some brandy if you help! Expensive brandy. That’s a good deal, isn’t it?”

Marie considered for a moment, then sat up on the edge of the bed. “Fine. Who are you buying a gift for?”
“It’s for the Secret Santa, old girl! I can’t just tell you!”

“Well, if you got me, more boron for my nuclear reactor. It’s always…temperamental in cold weather.”
“It’s not you.”

Marie thought for a moment. “Then it must be Tapputi, yes? In that case…” she frowned, “What does she use in her potions?”
“No idea.”
“I would offer to look,” said Marie, “but the last time I went in there, she had a man tied to a chair…”
“Did you not rescue the poor fella?” Churchill raised an eyebrow.
“I was going to, but then he pronounced ‘Skłodowska’ phonetically…” Marie’s eyes narrowed, and Churchill thought it better not to press the subject.

“When you next see her, ask her what she puts in the potions, and go and buy her whatever you can find out of what she says.” Marie said.
“Very well. How hard can that be?”
“Go to a market. You will find most of it there, I should think.”

Churchill slapped her on the back. “Good Marie! See, you are an expert at woman things!”

Leaving the double Nobel-Prize winner coughing up dislodged pitchblende dust in his wake, Churchill turned on his heel. He threw back Marie’s door, directly into Albert, who had been standing at the other side.

“Einstein! I wouldn’t go in there if I were you, my boy. Marie is rather grumpy. I suspect…” Churchill paused for effect, “P…M…S…”
With that, he was gone, leaving Einstein with a whole number of questions to ask the next time Marie taught his science lesson.

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The moment Tesla drew Darwin’s name from the bag, he knew exactly what to do. Up he went to the aviary in the tower of the base, where his pigeons were waiting for further instruction.

He sorted through them for a while, examining them closely, until at last, he had it! A fine, snow-white specimen, with a grey marking that looked strangely like a tortoise.

Placing the pigeon carefully beneath his coat, he snuck back down the tower, dodging Churchill in the hallway, who, for some reason, had a strange, herbal smell about him. Once back in his room, he set about tying a piece of ribbon carefully around the bird’s neck.

Pigeons, he has always thought, made the best of presents. Indeed, many of the Super Science Friends now had pigeons of their own, with the exception of Churchill, who had eaten his in a move that almost caused Tesla to quit the organisation.

Surely, a pigeon would be safe with a Naturalist?
A tortoise eating naturalist…
Tesla carefully microchipped the pigeon. One could never be too sure…

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Marie too was quite pleased with whom she had drawn. Einstein, at fourteen, was the most easily pleased of the Super Science Friends, and one she had come to know over the course of her life in her own time, and here at the base.

She thought for a while. What to give a teenager interested in practical Science?
An idea struck her suddenly, and off she went.

She bumped into Darwin on the way down the stairs, a suspicious look on his face, but she ignored him nevertheless.

Once inside her lab, she rummaged around for a suitable vessel. Spying a small glass bottle that had once contained some rather strange apple-scented body wash (gifted by Tapputi to someone or other), Marie set to work.

Once she had finished, she stood back to admire her creation. The apple-shaped bottle now glowed ethereally with Radium salt. She carefully put a stopper in it, then placed the whole thing into a (lead-lined) gift box.

A glowing red light flashed behind her, letting her know her reactor was about to blow once again, and Marie huffed, turning around to look through the window.
“This is because I made you wear reindeer antlers, isn’t it?” she muttered to it, opening the hatch and throwing the last of her Meltdown-Prevention Fluid in.
“There. Merry Christmas.”
With that, she stalked back to her room, carrying the box, picking up the small bottle of brandy Churchill had left on the doorstep as she passed.

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Upon seeing Marie at the top of the stairs, Darwin had grimaced. Unlike some of the Super Science friends, he had put some serious thought into his gift, and he didn’t want Marie to see it ahead of time.

He had grown a strain of giant poppies, having read that they were the national flower of Poland. Concealed in the box in his arms was the finest of those specimens, the result of days of sped up cultivation.

It wasn’t until he had wrapped the present that he remembered what had happened the very first time they had done Secret Santa.

Tesla had, predictably, given Marie a pigeon. At first, the bird had sat on her shoulder, and all had seemed well, however, once it migrated to her hand, the bird had quickly begun to look rather strange…
The radiation emanating from Marie had caused the pigeon to grow certain extra features, and so Marie became the proud owner of a glowing, five eyed, four legged fiend, which she appropriately named “Beakerell.”

After that, a rule was set, the first of many when it came to gift giving: never give the Mistress of Radiation a living organism.

Sighing, Darwin set about knitting a back-up present, just in case the poppy plant was to meet the same fate.

Chapter Text

Einstein had a plan. There was simply one issue: in order to buy cigars in England, one had to be sixteen. Whatever was he to do?

Five minutes later, he was knocking at Marie’s door.
“Who is that?” She called from within.
“Albert. Please let me in! I need to borrow you for something…”
There was a momentary pause, then Marie said, “come in.”

He explained his proposal to her, watching her expression closely.
“You want me to go and buy cigars on your behalf?” She said at last.
“Yes.”
Marie frowned. “I presume these aren’t for you?”
“No. It’s for the Secret Santa!”
“Good. Although I have to admit, the secret Santa is not very secret to me anymore because everyone keeps asking me for help!”

Einstein smiled a little sheepishly. “Sorry. I know you’re very busy doing…doing proper science.”
His remark seemed to win Marie over, as she got up and began to put on her hat and coat. When she was finished, she turned back to him.
“Lookin’ good, Mrs Curie!” He said, winking at her. Marie rolled her eyes, but allowed Einstein to take her on his arm nonetheless.

Out of the base and into London they went, young Einstein very pleased with his radiant companion.

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For many a day, Tapputi had been absent, emerging from her room only for meals and missions.

She was very much concerned with two missions of her own. One, to find out why her trapped gentleman friend kept shrieking “Skłodowska” with excellent pronunciation every time the door opened, and two, what to gift Freud.

After researching briefly what the man had actually contributed, Tapputi got to work. She had written, in a small leather-bound notebook, psychology concepts from her time, interspersed with a few simple potion recipes.

The whole effort had taken her significantly longer than she anticipated, but when, at last, the masterpiece of highlighter and wisdom was finished, she smiled.
“Excellent.”

Chapter Text

What to give Tesla, Freud wondered for a while. A while turned into hours, then into days, and suddenly, the morning of the gift exchange came, and he remained empty handed.

He, unlike the others, did not turn to Curie, but to Z3. Tesla, for a rare moment, had dozed off, and time was of the essence.

He fetched the Dream Intruder, and away he went. The sun was only just beginning to rise, and he spent a while shifting through the dreams of his teammates (pausing only briefly at Einstein’s, in which Marie Curie was sitting on a bar stool beside the Christmas tree, a red gift ribbon tied around her waist) until, at last, he reached Tesla’s.

Nikola was standing at the front of the Stockholm Concert Hall, a raucous applause emanating from the crowd as he waved to them, catching roses and showing off his Nobel Prize.

The scene was one of bliss, and for a while, uneventful. All in the dream seemed unaware of the dark, shadowy figure creeping across the stage towards Tesla.

In a flash, Edison appeared in the spotlight, and Tesla was promptly pantsed. Cheers turned to laughter, and suddenly all went dark, and he was confronted with the sight of a bowl of tortoise stew.
“Must be Darwin’s dream.” He muttered, and disconnected the Dream Intruder. Freud had seen what he needed to see, and immediately began drawing up plans…

Chapter Text

“Into this tale, we weave, the story of that fateful Christmas Eve. The Super Science Friends gathered around the tree, its branches irradiated from the presence of Curie.

Nobel Prizes were hung on the tree with care, and beneath the foliage, the presents were there.

Tapputi went first, and Freud was smitten, so good was the encyclopaedia the woman had written.

Tesla looked to Darwin, his pigeon in hand.
“A tortoise-patterned pigeon! That certainly isn’t bland!”

Churchill went next, and to Tapputi he gave, enough herbal remedies to send a man to his grave.

Darwin’s poppy touched Curie’s hand and immediately fried.
“Oh dear!” she said, “I think it has died!”
Darwin sighed, and whipped out a second box; inside which was a pair of Polish flag coloured socks!

From Einstein to Churchill cigars were given. What else could one gift a man so driven?

Lastly Einstein himself received, from his beloved Marie Curie, an apple shaped night light cast in lead.
“To keep you from becoming horribly irradiated” the gift tag read.

…After that, the room went silent…

It seemed to them all that nothing was left. Tesla sat by the fire looking rather bereft.

“I forgot to fetch your present!” Freud began, and with that, from the room he ran.
The others comforted Tesla as best they could,
“Remember to buy you a gift? We’re sure he would!”

After a while, Freud returned, and to see his present, Nikola yearned.
In Freud’s hand, just like the first, the
Ultra-Security belt that Edison cursed.

The teammates rejoiced, their gifts in hand, any rifts now buried deep in the sand.

It was over hot chocolate the Science Friends cried, “Merry Christmas to all! This time nobody died!”