To: Heather (gwenog) From: Santa Fandom/Game: MCU (pre-Civil War trailer) Characters: Steve Rogers & Friends Summary: It's Christmastime again, but Steve's not really in the mood to celebrate. Warnings/Rating: Gen
It didn't feel like Christmastime.
There were the usual shoppers and tourists, flocking the usual sites: Rockefeller Center, the giant tree, ice skating at Central Park. There were the shop windows along 34th street, lit with their lavish Christmas displays. There were ice skaters, and Christmas carols, and the ringing of bells on street corners.
But it was too warm for Christmas. The rains had not yet faded into snow. And the air carried it with it that warm, sticky smell of car exhaust that reminded him more of spring than winter. It didn't feel like Christmastime at all.
Steve knew better than to wish for a white Christmas. That was a song, Tony said, half disparagingly. A made up ideal to reel people in. And yeah, Steve kind of knew that was right, because when he'd been younger, that song hadn't existed. All he'd wanted for Christmas, at most, was an orange, and knowing he'd have a place to sleep.
That had been his life back then. Before the Super Soldier experiment. Before he'd lost Bucky that first time. When he and Bucky had camped out in the cramped apartment, empty stockings hanging above a gas stove, waiting not for that old man in red who'd never show up but their commanding officer. Waiting for that day they'd be called up to take that train to boot camp, to join forces with Uncle Sam's best fighters, to defeat the Nazis singlehandedly. Even knowing how that story ended, it was still one of the best times of his life.
That all seemed very long ago.
Now, the Avengers had split and reformed. He'd had no news of Bucky. And SHIELD? It was hard to say whether SHIELD had fallen or regrouped. He didn't work for SHIELD anymore, if he ever really had.
As he hopped a full train back to Brooklyn, he kept his head down. Sometimes, passersby recognized him. Even now with a baseball cap pulled over his eyes and arms weighed down with Christmas presents, someone might point and remark on Steve Rogers, Captain America, vigilante against the American government. It was something the tabloids had cooked up, something Tony said was inevitable… An argument Tony often used in going 'legit,' as he called it.
Steve didn't want to go legit. He hated that word, and whenever Tony brought it up -- in e-mails, or phone calls, or even in person -- Steve would wait patiently. He'd wait until he could say, with perfect politeness, here not a diplomatic façade but a sign of how much he still respected his friend, "Tony, the word is 'legitimate,' and has nothing to do with what we're talking about."
The train stopped four blocks from his Brooklyn apartment. When Steve got back to his apartment, it was empty. A half-decorated tree stood in one corner, covered in the handmade ornaments that Steve had found in one of the local stores. There were multi-colored lights hanging along one wall, and in the kitchen, a red stocking hung above the stove. It was stupid, really, to hang up a stocking. St. Nick didn't bring presents to fully grown men, living half a century out of their time. But it was a tradition, the one tradition he'd kept from all those years as a soldier, a block of ice, now a vigilante.
He hated that word, too.
Leaving his bags on the kitchen table, he plugged in the Christmas lights and then took out the rolls of fancy colored paper that Pepper had dropped off. He'd learned enough in the past few years to know that newspaper wasn't an acceptable feature at Stark parties.
- ❄ -
"Tony, it's good to see you." He offered a hand to his friend, and then pulled the man into a one-sided hug.
In the press, they were at odds. But here, in the semi-privacy of the former Avengers home, they were holding a Christmas truce. It was Tony's official residence now. He'd redesigned the entire tower, made it entirely self-sufficient. It was a big deal, if you cared about green building and the energy crisis, which Steve didn't.
He had his own problems.
"Any news of Bucky?" Pepper's voice now, her hand at his side, guiding him away from Tony. For her vigilance, Steve was ever grateful. Whatever difficulties existed between him and Tony, they didn't extend to Pepper.
"No. Sam hasn't checked in."
The other Avengers he'd put on the trail hadn't either, but he didn't offer that information.
"How are you and Tony doing? You got contracts wanting to replicate this place yet?"
Pepper only smiled. "Not yet. Is that Dr. Banner?"
Steve's eyes followed her gaze, spotting a tousled haired older man in a corner, arm-in-arm with a smaller brunette. "Looks like somebody convinced him to come off that island."
"I'd say." Pepper's eyes were on him, and Steve knew what she wanted to ask. It was what they always wanted to ask. Had Bruce taken a side?
"I don't want to talk about it."
- ❄ -
"Nat." Steve had paused near the bar. He didn't drink, which meant it was the last place anyone would expect him to be. "I got you something."
"Is it an apology for standing me up the other night?"
He pulled a small present from his pocket and handed it to her. "No. I thought that went without saying."
"You need to work on your charm, soldier. You aren't going to win any sympathy votes with that attitude." Her voice was light, but Steve knew. She didn't want to get mixed up with any of this. "And what's this? I'm too old for a fake ID."
"It's a portrait." Steve reached out and turned the small sketch over, revealing his signature in long, curling strokes. "Something to remember me by."
"You're planning to go down with this ship?" Now, her voice was exasperated. The old argument rehashed, and on Christmas Eve, of all nights. "Tony's-"
"It's the right thing to do."
"No..."
"Nat, Merry Christmas."
- ❄ -
Two weeks later, Sam found Bucky on a mission in Argentina. Steve still had his Christmas tree up when they brought him home. Because he was a vigilante now. Because time seemed to slip through his hands, leaving him with barely enough to search for his best friend, never enough to sweep up brown needles off the floor.
There were still enough needles on the tree to make it seem alive, but the lights on the wall were off. The stockings had come down. There was just a single orange in a bowl on the table, a little on the side of too ripe.
It didn't feel like Christmastime, and it wasn't, not really. Christmas had come and gone. The seasons had shifted, and now where everything had seemed full of cheer, it was just bleak. It was colder, too. Snow had finally come to New York.
When Steve looked out his apartment window, he thought this was what Christmas had been like all those years ago. It wasn't, but that was another trick that time played. It made the past seem brighter than the present.
Not that it mattered.
"Your mom used to have these for Christmas." Bucky picked the orange off the table. "I remember now. Her name was Sarah..."
Some Christmas miracles just took a little longer to come true.