Chapter Eight

A few months later, everyone found themselves sitting in the living room of Stark Towers, surrounded by presents and cheesy Christmas lights. Loki's cats had already managed to knock down the ridiculously expensive tree that Steve and Natasha had decorated the night before. Darcy suspected that Astrid had assisted the cats in that particular feat. She was growing up to be quite the trickster. She supposed the apple didn't fall far from the tree in that regard.

Maria had taken the liberty of inviting Fury and Coulson to spend Christmas in the Avengers Tower once she learned that neither of the men had anywhere to go for the holiday. Fury and Tony had both tried to come up with excuses to shoot down her proposition, but Natasha had backed Maria up, and everyone knew better than to try to argue with both of them.

Now they were all sitting in the living room while Steve distributed presents. Astrid had taken to crawling all over Fury in an effort to take his eye patch. Everyone else watched in amusement as Thor and Jane attempted to wrestle Astrid away from Fury before he had the opportunity to yell at her.

"Are those all Astrid's presents?" Clint asked in surprise once Steve had finally finished sorting the presents into neat piles in front of everyone gathered around the living room.

"Yeah," Steve replied with a laugh, "I think we all went a little overboard."

They certainly had. The pile of presents sitting before Astrid was taller than she was; Steve had counted about one-hundred presents for the little girl alone while sorting. Each of the Avengers had contributed about the same amount of presents to the massive pile. They had all received a fairly short list from Astrid herself; the poor girl just wanted a rubix cube and a helmet like her daddy's. She wound up with all of that and more.

It would be too difficult to list out all of the presents that Astrid received. In all honesty, by the end of the evening, Astrid could not even remember all of the presents that she had received throughout the course of the evening. That was partially because Loki had a few of them from her; namely, the hover board that Tony had made her, the charcoal pencils that Steve had gotten her, the arrows that Clint had gotten her, the knife that Natasha had gotten her, and the illegal fireworks that Bucky had gotten her. In hindsight, the demi-god supposed that he should have come up with a list of presents that were inappropriate for a four year-old.

Of the gifts that her protective guardian did allow her to receive, Astrid's absolute favorite was the sketch that Steve had done of her. Steve himself hadn't thought much of it, but Natasha had found it on his desk and insisted on framing it and giving it to Astrid. Now Astrid was demanding that Steve draw a picture of every single occupant in the room immediately.

While Astrid shoved Steve's sketchpad and dangerously sharp pencils near his face, the rest of the Avengers opened their presents. Steve even managed to open a few while Astrid attempted to draw Loki herself.

None of the Avengers received nearly as many presents as Astrid did, but they still received a sizable amount. It would take far too long to even try to list everything that each of the 17 people received; it would be much easier to focus on the favorite presents once more.

Natasha's favorite present was tickets to the Nutcracker. Clint swore up and down that he had waited in line for days to recover the tickets. Everyone else knew that he had just put his name on the waitlist and called everyone that might have tickets until he found seats. He wound up having to pay an extremely obnoxious woman $500 per ticket in order to convince her to part with her own tickets.

Clint's favorite present was a pizza. No, really. Natasha picked up a pizza and wrapped it about fifteen minutes before Tony declared that it was time to open presents. Clint began eating the pizza immediately after thanking Natasha. He gave Pizza the dog a slice as well.

Steve's favorite present was a toss-up. He actually received three presents that he considered to be the best; Natasha got him a compiled write-up of every mission that he had run since joining S.H.I.E.L.D., Peggy got him a new shield that she had brainstormed and coerced Tony into building, and Bucky got him a survival kit that included a massive first aid box and a roadkill cookbook, should they ever find themselves stranded in a foreign country again.

Bucky's favorite present was a scrapbook from Steve. Mrs. Barnes had played a hand in that; the woman would forever resent Steve and Bucky for not seeing her the moment they set foot on U.S. soil, but she would always help them the second that they asked. She had helped Steve recover old photographs (Steve had some kind of injury in almost every single picture), old letters from teachers begging Mrs. Barnes to talk to Bucky about fighting other kids for picking on Steve, and old notes that Bucky and Steve used to pass to each other in their horrendously boring middle school classes. All of those things and more were put into the scrapbook that was then wrapped and designated to Bucky. Steve was worried that it might be corny. Bucky assured him that it was perfect.

Darcy's favorite present was a book of accurate tales of Asgard that Loki had written himself. Some of the stories about Thor might have been a little exaggerated, but Darcy wouldn't mind that.

Loki's favorite present was a macaroni art pictures that Astrid had made him of each and every one of their cats. He promised that he would get them framed the next day.

Thor's favorite present was a cell phone that Tony and Jane had both built him shortly after Jane and Thor had visited Asgard. Thor didn't completely understand how it worked - Asgard's technology and understanding of innovation was much different than that of Migard - but Tony and Jane managed to create a phone line between Asgard and Midgard. Thor could call his mother whenever he wanted and could avoid his father's phone calls whenever it was at all possible.

Jane's favorite present was a book that Loki stole out of the Asgardian library for her. It was a book that Odin had deemed 'dangerous' for any resident of Midgard to read. Jane had protested the decision to no avail. Loki, always eager to defy Odin, had swiped it the moment he heard Jane complaining.

Bruce's favorite present was yet another book that Loki managed to swipe from Odin's library. It wasn't a comprehensive outline of Asgard's scientific advances like Jane's, but it was a book of medical advances that could hold the key for Bruce's recovery from his gamma dilemma.

Maria's favorite present was, oddly enough, from Fury. He denied it and claimed that the gift had appeared on its own, but everyone knew better. He had gotten her a security clearance pass for all levels of S.H.I.E.L.D. and a lengthy contract that essentially promoted her to the co-director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He begrudgingly admitted that he couldn't keep the agency operational without her.

Sam's favorite present was from Bruce. Bruce had spent a number of hours in the lab working to modify the mechanical wings that Bucky had accidentally broken during a training exercise. Sam was so excited that he put the wings on and jumped right through the living room window. Tony informed Elizabeth that she and Sam would have to pay for the broken window before they moved out. Pepper assured Elizabeth that Tony wouldn't actually make them pay a cent.

Rhodey's favorite present was from Tony. It was an iron man suit almost exactly like Tony's, minus the paint job and a few minor adjustments that Tony felt he had the right to monopolize. Rhodey promised to use it for limited military operations.

Peggy's favorite present was sort of a joint present for her and Natasha; it was a compilation of the absolute dumbest things that Steve had done over the years. Bucky authored it himself. Peggy strongly considered getting it published or perhaps turned into a "don't try this at home" documentary.

Coulson's favorite present was from Steve. It was a shield just like Steve's old one. Steve paired it with a smile and an offer to join Coulson on his next mission; Fury had complained about Coulson requesting to join Steve on a mission for some time now.

Fury's favorite present was perhaps the most creative of all. It was from all of the Avengers, Astrid included. It was a certificate that could be redeemed for an entire hour's worth of silence. Tony swore he saw a tear appear in Fury's eye when he received it.

Tony's favorite present was a notebook of the special graph paper that he swore up and down had different dimensions than 'regular' graph paper, whatever that meant. Pepper found it while sealing up a contract with one of Tony's clients in France.

Pepper's favorite present was an engagement ring from Tony. Everyone had gawked at the ring sitting in Pepper's shaking hands. When she finally choked out a "yes," everyone immediately gathered in the middle of the room for an impromptu group hug. Tony, Fury, and Loki tried to squirm out of it but found that despite their best efforts, they were stuck until the hug dissolved on its own accord.

The rest of Christmas day passed fairly peacefully for the Avengers and their friends. Everyone played with their new presents, baked cookies, curled up in front of the TV and watched crappy Christmas movies from the 70's, and sang cheesy Elvis versions of Christmas songs. For one unusual and extraordinarily soothing evening, they relaxed and enjoyed themselves.

Steve, Coulson, and Bucky watched A Miser Brothers' Christmas (Steve insisted that it wasn't Christmas without it) and sang along to every song in their own off-key voices, Clint and Darcy tried to make eggnog in the spirit of Christmas but quickly decided that it was gross and spiked the hot chocolate instead, Natasha and Peggy took turns showing Astrid how to use the tiny toy dagger that Loki had given her, Jane and Bruce sat in a corner and compared information from their forbidden books, Thor and Sam snuck into the kitchen to eat the cookies that Steve and Natasha had made earlier in the evening while they weren't looking, Rhodey and Tony wandered down to the garage and played with their iron man suits, and Loki and Fury sat on the other end of the couch, surrounded by cats and pretending to hate every minute of the day. Everyone knew that they were just waiting until no one was watching to truly enjoy themselves.

For one moment in time, things were comfortable. They were not the world's greatest heroes; they were just a family enjoying their Christmas day in their own way.

It wouldn't last, of course. The very next day there would be a man of questionable sanity running around Chicago trying to steal as many dalmatians as he could, but the Avengers didn't know about that yet. They didn't need to know about that yet. For now, they were able to enjoy their evening of peace. They were a team, they were together, and they were happy. That was that.

The End

Okie dokie, this is the end. Our little Avengers are all grown up and saving the world together. Of course, I think there are a little bit more people in the team than in the actual movies, but the more the merrier, right? Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. ~