Archive of Our Own

January 6th: 352 days ago

Uncle Nick's assistant hated Sam. At least, he'd known her his whole life, and she hadn't smiled at him in over a decade. "Director Fury will see you now," she said. That sounded weird, since they'd been married since the early Pleistocene. But more than that, it sounded ominous.

Uncle Nick wasn't really Sam's uncle. He was Sam's godfather and his father's best friend. Sam didn't like to contemplate how his family would've fared after his father died without Nick. Unfortunately, like many uncles, no matter how you got them, Nick seemed insistent on running Sam's life, even though Sam was, as Nick himself often pointed out, a grown-ass man who ought to be doing this shit for himself. Sam had a nasty suspicion he was walking into exactly that sort of meeting.

As Sam moved across Uncle Nick's office, he observed the usual touchstones. He jingled the sleigh bells over the door. He swirled the Globe Theatre snow globe. He unwrapped a mini candy cane from the candy dish and popped it into his mouth.

These were his favorite parts of Uncle Nick, the ones that offered, to anyone who bothered to look, a glimpse of the man behind the all-black wardrobe, the black eyepatch, the sleek black desk and chairs. The man who wore a white snowflake tie tack and cuff links—each one subtly different, like real snowflakes—who started listening to Christmas music the day after Halloween, who had three obscenely lazy cats named Dazzle, Sparkle, and Shine.

Even if Christmas weren't Sam's favorite holiday, he would love this side of Uncle Nick best. It showed the huge heart underneath the stone-cold badass corporate executive image he presented to the world. Though he was also a stone-cold badass corporate executive.

"Sam!"

"Hey, Uncle Nick." Sam stepped into Nick's open arms. The guy gave great hugs.

They made a couple minutes of small talk about the weather and Sam's family. Then Nick leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers over his stomach, and Sam braced for any possibility. "How do you like your job, Sam?"

Sam blinked. "I love it, Uncle Nick. You know that."

Nick nodded. "Does it feel like a career? Something you see yourself doing for the rest of your working life?"

"I—" Sam paused. He easily saw himself working at the VA until retirement, but he wasn't sure the U.S. government did. Over the last two years, he'd watched ruthless budget cuts force devastating losses in programs and staff. If the trend held steady, either Sam would get laid off or the stress of doing three people's worth of work would force him to quit.

Uncle Nick nodded again, his expression sad and knowing. He put his hands on the arms of his chair and leaned forward. "Here's my proposal to you. It's damned well past time I retired. Come to Worldwide Play and take over my position."

Sam's jaw dropped. "Are you out of your damned mind?" he demanded. Nick's eyebrows went up. "You can't—okay, first of all, that's some damned crazy nepotism right there. I would get no respect. Two, I've never worked at this company a day in my life. No way in hell I can come in cold and be Director of Distribution or whatever the hell you are." Uncle Nick fixed Sam with a long, unblinking stare that grew increasingly unbearable as the seconds ticked into minutes. "What?" Sam asked. "What?" He was starting to sweat.

Uncle Nick punched the intercom button on his phone. "Hold my calls for the next couple hours." He squinted at Sam. "We've been better secret-keepers than we realized."

"Understood, sir," the crisp voice said, and Nick smiled faintly.

He disconnected the call, stood, and gestured toward the back of his office. "Shall we?"

"Shall we what?"

Sam had been in this office a score of times in his life, as a curious child immersed in the small details of the world, a rebellious teenager willing to go to ridiculous lengths to avoid conversation with his parents' generation, and a parajumper who hadn't entirely stood down from the war, studying the world like the smallest missed detail could kill him. He'd memorized this office, okay? He had never seen that door.

Grinning wildly, Nick pushed a button on the underside of his desk, and the mysterious door swung open silently. "Sam Wilson," Uncle Nick said, "welcome to the family business."

Sam could only stand and stare. Beyond that door was not, as he had expected—as any reasonable person would've expected—a production floor, a shipping dock, a parts warehouse, or anything related to the manufacture and distribution of toys. At least, not in the modern industrial sense.

Beyond that door was Santa's workshop at the North Pole.

No sign identified the space, and if the beings scurrying back and forth were elves, then every Christmas story ever written had been a thousand percent wrong about what elves looked like. But a certain sparkle to the snow that lay in deep drifts across the landscape, an old-fashioned, vaguely Alpine aesthetic to the clothes, and an all-around sense of wonder, palpable even from here, made Sam sure he couldn't be looking at anything else.

"What the actual fuck, Uncle Nick?" Sam's eyes widened. "Or should I call you Saint Nick?"

Uncle Nick waved his hand, frowning. "Don't you dare. I'm not that old. Saint Nicholas was a different guy."

"But, I mean, you're not shitting me here. You really are—what? Santa Claus? Kris Kringle? Father Christmas? Seriously, Uncle Nick?"

And who would've fucking believed it, but Nick Fury's expression softened. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Father Christmas. Always liked that one."

"Unfuckingbelievable," Sam muttered. And then a new suspicion began to flash warning lights in his mind. "Why are you showing me this?"

"Because there comes a time in every mythological being's life when they start to think about succession planning."

Later, Sam would point to this as the moment his mind shorted out. If he tried to transcribe his thoughts, they would look something like: UncleNickisSantaJesusChristSANTAwhatdoIevenDOwiththatnowIthinkhewantsMEtobeSantawhattheseriousfuckSANTAholyfuckI'mgonnapuke. "Uncle Nick, I—"

Nick patted his shoulder. "It's a lot to take in. I get it."

"I know you held your calls and everything. But I'm not ready to walk through that door." He gestured at the open door that led to—Samuel Thomas Wilson, do not finish that sentence, even in your head; you will lose your goddamn mind.

Uncle Nick shook his head. "Look, Sam, I get it. Mel warned me I should break it to you slow, ease you into it, but I thought it'd be better to do it fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid."

"The Band-Aid has definitely been ripped off," Sam said.

"Besides," Nick said with a smirk, "holding my calls wasn't for me. It was for her."

The main door to the office—that blessedly ordinary door that only led to the waiting room—opened, revealing Aunt Melinda standing in the doorway with a much bigger smirk and a key ring that bristled like a porcupine. "It's because we've had that phone system for eight years, and he still doesn't know how to use it." She jingled the keys at Sam. "Come on. I have keys to his bar. Let's get shit-faced and talk about Santa Claus."

Wide-eyed, Sam looked from Melinda to Nick, who nodded. "Go on," Nick said. He grabbed his black leather trenchcoat from a hook by the other door and pulled it on, tugging a hat out of the pocket and jamming it onto his head. "I'm gonna go walk the production floor, scare the shit outta some elves." He kissed Aunt Melinda goodbye and squeezed Sam's shoulder. "Good luck. Have fun. Don't get arrested." Then he swept through the door to the North fucking Pole in a dramatic swirl of dark coat and dazzling snowflakes.

The door closed without a sound and vanished into the wall, leaving no trace of its existence, but Sam continued to stare at the spot where it'd been until he heard jingling behind him. He nodded, and Melinda picked one of the smaller keys from her giant ring and opened a small decorative panel in the wall. She turned the key, and half the wall slid away, revealing the largest and best-stocked bar Sam had ever seen—including the ones at actual bars.

"So, Sam," Aunt Melinda said, "what's your poison?" 

*

Sam was so drunk. Like, super drunk. Like, the drunkest ever. Ever-ever.

"I don't think anyone ever in the history of ever has ever been this drunk. Ever." He frowned. "That's a funny word. 'Ever.'"

Also, he was lying on a couch, on his back, with his head in Aunt Melinda's lap. That was the weirdest thing ever-ever.

While Sam kept repeating the word "ever" under his breath, Melinda rolled her eyes and poured him another shot of bourbon. He had an inkling that he should say no, but Melinda was putting the glass into his hand, and he made it a rule not to argue with her, because she scared him. "You're scary," he said. The message slowly worked its way through his brain that that wasn't the smartest thing he'd ever said.

Melinda toasted him with the tumbler of honey whiskey she'd been nursing for the past half hour. "Thank you," she said sincerely.

"You're—" Sam blinked up at her. "Holy shit, you're Mrs. Claus." He shook his head and regretted it immediately. "I thought Mrs. Claus was supposed to be, you know . . . jolly."

"I'm jolly," she said, without a trace of emotion in her face or voice.

Sam laughed until he ached, which wasn't long, because everything ached. Like his brain. His brain ached most of all. "Aunt Melinda, I—this is—I'm having real problems here."

Melinda nodded. "I know. This is how we felt when we were approached."

"Oh. Huh." Sam hadn't considered that Uncle Nick might not be the original Father Christmas. That he, too, might be part of a long line of people to don the mantle and adopt the name. Like the Dread Pirate Roberts. Sam snorted into his bourbon and muttered, "Think I'd rather be the Dread Pirate Roberts."

"Wouldn't we all," Melinda said.

They sat in silence for a while, Sam trapped in his spinning thoughts, Aunt Melinda doing . . . whatever Melinda did when she wasn't running Uncle Nick's life with terrifying efficiency. Then she said, "It's a lot to deal with, mentally and physically. It's a demanding job, harder than anything else you've done. But you won't be alone. Your team's the best at what they do, and they've been doing it for . . . a really long time.

"And Nick trusts you. That's not something he gives easily. I've waited ten years for him to retire because he was waiting for you to be ready."

"Don't think I could ever be ready for this," Sam said weakly.

Melinda shrugged minutely. "Maybe not. And if you say no, he'll respect that." She considered him while she sipped her drink. "Just ask yourself: does what you'd gain by saying yes outweigh what you'd lose?"

That seemed like too heavy a question to ask someone as drunk as he was, but it was the million fucking dollar question, wasn't it?

Sam liked his life, but it was . . . thin. He had a job he loved but couldn't keep much longer, an apartment he loathed but endured because he couldn't afford better, and a fairly nonexistent social life. He'd never been the most fluttery of social butterflies, preferring to spend his "people time" on clients at the VA. And since Riley's death had robbed him of his dearest friend and best wingman, he spent far more nights on his couch than off it. His friend circle was pretty much Carol and Rhodey, and though they tried not to, he couldn't help but feel like a third wheel around them.

But he wouldn't just be giving up his world, would he? He didn't have to go into complete exile; Uncle Nick and Aunt Melinda had their penthouse in SoHo and the fancy orchestra concerts they never missed. But over the last two hours, Sam had come to understand the sense of "otherness" he'd always gotten from them, the sense of not being entirely connected to this world. Could Sam handle the same isolation? Could he give up warm weather and jogging on the Mall and beer-battered onion rings? Could he live surrounded by elves and reindeer rather than humans and pigeons?

"There are reindeer, aren't there?" Sam tilted his head up at Aunt Melinda.

She tilted her hand back and forth. "In a manner of speaking."

"Huh."

"This has to be your decision. But you could go for a while. Take some of that leave you never use. Meet the people, get to know the operation."

"Interim Claus, huh?"

She smirked. "More like Intern Claus."

"Make this coffee and muck the reindeer stalls?"

Melinda hummed. "The elves prefer cocoa, and the reindeer—well. Best to see for yourself." She raised an eyebrow in clear challenge. "But if you have more important things to do . . ."

It was quite sobering to realize he didn't. 

* 

February 19: 308 days ago

The day Sam gathered the courage to walk through the hidden door in the back of Uncle Nick's office and through the darkness across an ice field the size of a soccer pitch, a small gaggle of elves was waiting for him outside the main building (Santa's workshop, his brain insisted, though he wasn't sure he was ready to hear it. The main building is Santa's workshop). The air wasn't the coldest he'd ever felt, but the cold was relentless. Sam hunched deeper into his jacket and really, really hoped Uncle Nick knew what he was asking.

At the head of the group stood one of the most attractive people Sam had ever set eyes on. He (he? When Sam had asked Uncle Nick about elf genders, the response had been a vague and unhelpful, "They have the same genders as humans . . . basically.") was tall and broad-shouldered, with, Sam saw as he got closer, sparkling blue eyes and bright gold hair sticking out from under a red knit cap. He held out a large plate that wobbled alarmingly under the weight of an enormous pyramid of chocolate chip cookies. "Hi," the guy said, and under the bright Arctic sun, his white-toothed grin was literally blinding. "I'm Steve. I'm the head of the welcoming committee."

Of course you are, Sam thought. He took a cookie and, when Steve's lovely mouth betrayed a hint of a wobble, took two more. Hey, they looked delicious, and if eating three kept that smile going, Sam would take the hit. He was supposed to shake when he laughed, right? Like a bowl full of jelly. "Hey," he said, aware that he was spraying cookie crumbs in a hideously unattractive manner. "I'm Sam."

Steve grinned. "Welcome to the North Pole." He gestured at the crowd. "Come meet the team. Well. Some of the team. The ones you'll work with most." He waved at two elves at the front of the group. "Bruce and Tony, your heads the R&D."

The shorter of the elves bounced—literally bounced, in a way a human couldn't have—up to him. "Hey there, New Santa. He's Bruce; I'm Tony. He's R; I'm D. If you need anything—anything—let me know. New sleigh, new tracker—wings? I've always said the Claus should have wings."

"Tony." Bruce's voice was firm, but his hand on Tony's arm was gentle. "We talked about this." Tony grumbled but subsided. "Sorry," Bruce said to Sam. "He's not good with humans."

"He's not good with anyone," someone muttered, followed by a shushing noise.

Steve ignored it and turned to the pair beside Bruce and Tony. "Jemma and Fitz, environment and concealment."

"Jemma makes sure we can survive here—" Fitz said, and oh, okay. Scottish elf.

"—and Fitz makes sure no one knows we're doing it," Jemma finished. They were cute, finishing each other's sentences. If not for Jemma's British accent, Sam would've guessed they were siblings.

Steve pointed at the man hovering at Fitz's right shoulder. "Mack's our trend-watcher. He's in charge of data and analytics."

Sam raised his eyebrows as he shook Mack's giant hand. "I have no idea what that means."

Mack gave a rumbling laugh. "I keep track of what kids are asking for, so production knows what to make."

"Gotcha." Sam looked around. "Who's production?"

Steve grinned. "That'd be me."

Sam was powerless to do anything but grin back. "We'll be working together a lot, huh?"

Was it wishful thinking, or did Steve turn pink? "Production and distribution go together like cocoa and whipped cream."

Aw, shit. Sam wanted to pinch the guy's cheeks.

Steve turned to the elf on Mack's other side. "Daisy is your head of IM."

Sam frowned. "IM?"

"Information magic." Daisy scowled at Sam. "It's a Herculean task. I'm busy all the time. If you break your laptop downloading human porn, you're on your own."

"Daisy," Jemma sighed, while Sam thought he heard Tony mutter, "Busy looking at baby seal pictures, maybe."

Sam gave Daisy a smile. "I'll keep that in mind," he promised.

"And this," Steve said, gesturing at a group of elves standing apart from the others, "is an unnecessary show of force by the security division."

Sam had watched that Rudolph special every damned year as a kid. The elves in that Santa's workshop didn't have a security division. But he supposed the world was changing, and even Santa Claus had to change with it.

Six elves stood in front of him. Where everyone else wore a mishmash of traditional Bavarian shepherding attire, heavy geansaithe Árann, fur-lined parkas, Fair Isle mittens, pompomed toques, and bulky snow pants, five of the elves in this group wore state-of-the-art navy blue tac uniforms, while the sixth wore an obviously hand-tailored navy suit. They wore mirrored sunglasses and looked like they could kill him with their index fingers.

"Maria's your Strategic Security Chief," Steve said, pointing to the woman at the front of the group. "These are her deputies, Natasha and Bobbi." The guy standing next to Maria, the one in the suit, got introduced as, "Phil, Tactical Security Chief. Bucky and Clint are under him." Someone coughed, and Sam thought he saw hints of smirks on both Strat Sec deputies, but he put it down to an inside joke and ignored it, focusing on memorizing names and faces.

"That's everyone for now," Steve said. He was still holding the plate, which was considerably emptier than when they'd started. "We wanted more of the services staff to be here—head chef, housing coordinator—but they're busy doing their jobs. Want the tour?"

It was impossible to ignore the building behind them, but Sam had been doing his best, waiting until he could give it his full attention. It soared above them, a heady mix of fairytale charm and modern sleekness, like a gingerbread house designed by I.M Pei. Sam shivered in delight and hoped he'd never get to a point where this felt like another humdrum workplace. He hoped familiarity never took away the magic of this place. 

* 

By dinner time, Sam had toured what felt like a hundred buildings and met more elves than he'd imagined the North Pole could hold. Elves in charge of sanitation, transportation, childcare, healthcare, food service, and postal service. The North Pole—not the geographical location found on human maps but the magical city he found himself in—turned out to be a metropolis with infrastructure and organization like any other, only with a magical base instead of a technological one.

"You hungry?" Steve asked as he leaned across Sam to open the door of the sleigh they were riding in (personal rapid transit by sleigh!). Sam swallowed a groan. Three things he'd learned for sure about elves: they ran warm; they ate a lot; and they had no damned concept of personal space. The number of times he'd been leaned toward, leaned on, shoulder-clapped, hand-squeezed, and unexpectedly hugged today had to number in the high 50s.

Steve was by far the worst offender, and Sam had to constantly remind himself that it was a cultural convention, not anything Steve meant anything by. He reminded himself again as he nodded and said, "I could eat."

Steve smiled and climbed over him to get out of the sleigh. Sam gritted his teeth and plastered on a smile. "Great!" Steve said. "You'll love this place."

From what Sam had tasted so far, he would love every food place in the North Pole. After the lunch they'd had and an afternoon nibbling the cookies and candies that seemed to be everywhere, Sam knew he would have no problem fulfilling the "little round belly" part of the job description.

When they got inside the restaurant, Sam blinked in surprise. He'd expected a place like they'd gone to for lunch: bright, airy, and open, humming with good cheer and bustling with groups of happy, chatting elves. This place had low lighting, quiet instrumental Christmas music flowing from the speakers, and groups of two and three clustered intimately around small, candlelit tables. Sam looked at Steve for any sign of whether coincidence or intention had landed them here, but he kept his eyes on the maître d', and his usually expressive face was still. Which was probably an answer, if Sam knew how to interpret it.

After they'd hung their outerwear and were seated at a small table in the back, mostly obscured by several small potted Christmas trees (you absolutely could not escape Christmas decorations around here, no matter the time of year), Steve seemed less sure of himself. He fiddled with the handle of his cocoa mug and glanced around, looking anywhere but at Sam.

Sam took shameless advantage of Steve's distraction to study him. They'd been in near-constant motion on the tour, and the elves stayed prodigiously bundled outside. This was the first chance he'd had to study Steve—or any of the elves—at length.

He couldn't get over how human they looked. Sure, the security team members moved with a poise and grace that had to be supernatural. And, sure, Mack looked like one of his parents might have been an armored truck. But only—oh, what was his name? The flighty one. Fitz, that was it—looked anything like a lifetime of children's holiday television had programmed Sam to expect. The others would be at home in any crowd in America.

Well, he amended as he studied Steve in the flickering candlelight, they would be if they kept their adorable pointy ears covered. The longer he looked, the more differences he saw. A green reflection in the eyes, like a cat's. A smoothness to the skin, like a waterproof coat, and a thickness to the hair, like—"Is your hair hollow?" Oh, well done, Wilson. If you stick your foot any further in, you can swallow it.

Steve rubbed his hand through his hair and said, "Huh. Never had a Santa ask me that before."

Sam shrugged. "Cold-weather adaptations are kind of universal, apparently."

"Uh huh," Steve said skeptically and then went back to staring at his mug.

One of the best ways Sam had found to help someone who was feeling awkward was to be more awkward. "So," he said, and Steve jerked, sloshing cocoa over his hand. He swore (elf swearing, which consisted of phrases like, "Oh, dingle bells" and "What the burnt biscuit?") and looked apologetically at Sam while he sucked chocolate off his skin. Sam cleared his throat and looked away while he got his libido under control.

When he felt safe looking at Steve again, Steve was looking expectantly back, recovered from whatever freak-out he'd been having. "Yes?"

"If it's okay with you, I'd like to ask a lot of invasive personal questions about elves."

Steve looked startled, but then he laughed. "Yeah, okay," he said, a devil-may-care nonchalance to his voice.

Sam grinned. He wasn't sure if Steve was as unaffected as he made out, but he would take it either way. "That's the spirit," he said. "Okay, where are the kids? I've seen like four all day."

"Oh." Steve looked startled, like that wasn't the question he'd expected. "There aren't many. We're long-lived, compared to humans, so our birth rate is much lower. It's why kids close in age grow up more like siblings than friends. Not many of us have actual siblings."

"Like Jemma and Fitz."

"Mm-hmm." Steve nodded. "And Bucky and me." When Sam's eyebrow lifted, Steve rolled his eyes and said, "You didn't see it earlier because he was doing his 'stoic macho soldier' routine, but oh, holly berry, the things we got up to as kids." He laughed and shook his head.

"Huh. Yeah, I can picture it. Now, when you say 'long-lived'. . ."

"Um, 300 years, give or take. That's why Santa has to be human. Mack and his team watch humanity, but without a Santa with first-hand knowledge, we get out of touch."

"Yeah, but don't you have the same Santa, like, forever?"

Steve shook his head. "Oh, no. Santas have a longer lifespan than other humans—it's an ambient magic thing—but it's extra decades, not centuries. Nick started right after World War II." Shit. Sam had known that Uncle Nick was older than he looked, but he hadn't expected that. Steve's voice turned wistful and sad as he continued, "Peggy was before Nick; she'd done it since, um—oh! Since Queen Victoria died."

Sam's eyes bugged. "There's been a female Santa?"

"Three." Steve narrowed his eyes. "Something wrong with that?"

Sam laughed. "No, man, it's fantastic. Just thinking of the traditionalists having a fit."

"Hah!" Steve said. "Let me tell you about traditionalists. This one time when we were kids—oh, but, no, I shouldn't tell that story. Don't want to tarnish my image."

"Oh, come on, man," Sam wheedled. "Y'already said you were a troublemaker. I wanna know what you did that was so bad."

Steve vacillated for a few seconds, and then he leaned forward and said, "Okay, the thing you have to know is that elf kids grow up slowly, and I was the slowest of all . . ." 

* 

". . . so then the cop looks at my mom and says, 'Ma'am, I don't know how you got in here, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave.'" Sam waited the all-important beat and finished, "'Leave the chicken.'"

Steve's mouth hung open for one perfect instant before he exploded in gales of laughter. "Did she knee him in the peppermint stick?"

Sam choked. "Uh, no. No, I'm sure she wanted to, but tiny black ladies assaulting big white cops is always a bad idea where I'm from. But my sister caught the whole thing on her phone. It was all over the internet the next day."

Steve shook his head. "Oh, snow angel," he sighed. "How long did it take to find the eggs?"

Sam grinned. Hardly anybody asked that, and it was the best part of the story. "Days," he said. "Actually, one we didn't find for over a month." He paused. "'Til it started going bad."

That set Steve off again. Sam watched from across the table as he tried to get himself back under control. He felt like they knew each other now, after an evening of sharing stories. Sam knew the mischievous arc of Steve's smile when he talked about childhood shenanigans with Bucky, the proud curve of his shoulder when he mentioned rising through the ranks under a long line of Santas.

Everything Sam learned made him like Steve more, which was a problem. Even if he could be sure Steve returned his feelings, Sam didn't know if he was accepting the position. He couldn't take it just because a good-looking elf smiled at him over dinner, but if he didn't take it, if he went back to his ordinary life, well. He'd tried—and failed—at interstate relationships. He couldn't imagine trying to navigate an interdimensional one.

"Bonbon for your thoughts," Steve said quietly.

Sam was trying to figure out how to answer when Steve started beeping. "Cookie dough," he muttered as he looked at the communicator watch Sam had seen almost all the elves wearing. "Executive alert. That means us."

"What kinda crisis we walking into?" Sam asked. "'Executive alert' mean 'incoming missile' or 'out of mini marshmallows'?"

Steve snorted. "Daisy tried to use it for that once." He shook his head. "No, five'll get you ten it's Phil and Clint being ridiculous at each other."

"Ridiculous how?"

Steve mom-armed Sam before he could step off the sidewalk and into the path of a caravan of gleaming red sleighs. "Joy riders," he huffed. They crossed the street with a bit more caution, but as soon as they were across, Steve took off again.

"Clint and Phil have been pining over each other for, oh, feels like decades now," Steve said. "They're both interested. They both know they're both interested. But Phil acts like his job prevents him from starting anything with one of his deputies, and Clint—well, his issues aren't mine to tell, but there are plenty of them."

"So they're, what, Merchant-Ivorying each other?"

Steve burst out laughing. "I got that reference," he said, and Sam grinned. "Believe it or not, a Remains of the Day lunchbox got kind of popular one year. Anyway, the problem is that the only way these dingle bells can think of to show each other how they feel is rescuing each other from dire peril."

"Is there a lot of dire peril around here?"

"Almost none," Steve replied with a knowing grin.

"So they invent it?"

Steve nodded as he brought Sam around one last corner and Sam recognized the road to the workshop. "That is exactly what they do."

"Executive alert" turned out to mean everyone Sam had met this morning, as well as a couple he hadn't, gathered in the workshop lobby. "On a scale of one to five," Bobbi was asking as Sam and Steve arrived, "how made-up is this crisis?"

Natasha smirked, while Bucky looked pissed, probably because it was his teammates dicking around.  "Two," Maria said. "There was a concealment breach, but it was nowhere near bad enough for them to ride off to 'defend us,' making the breach worse in the process."

"Is it sealed now?" Steve asked.

"It will be," Fitz said from Sam's right, and he tried not to jump. "But since I don't know exactly where Phil and Clint are, I can't use the remote overrides. I'll have to go shut it down manually."

"If you'd been where you were supposed to be —" Bucky growled.

Mack immediately started growling back, but Fitz quelled them both with a hand on Mack's arm and a hard glare at Bucky. "I am allowed my evenings off, same as everyone," he said. "Everyone knows where to find me if I'm not in the lab or our room, and I always have my watch on and on me." He poked his finger into Bucky's sternum. "You know how they are. They tried to raise me once, and when I didn't answer, they took the excuse to rush headlong into a situation they shouldn't have been involved in. It's how you security hotshots are."

Bucky got right up in Fitz's face. "If your containment shields had held—"

Fitz didn't yield an inch. "Oi! I am concealing an entire town from the entire world—"

"Enough! Both of you!" Maria's shout brought Fitz and Bucky up short, and they glared at each other, breathing hard. "Save the posturing and blame-throwing for later. Right now, two of our best elves are on the perimeter, and we don't know what caused the initial breach." She scanned the assembled elves. "Fitz, find them. I'm sending Clint's last known coordinates." She looked at Mack and sighed. "I don't suppose there's any point in telling you not to go with him."

Mack crossed his arms and looked, if possible, even more tank-like. "None whatsoever."

"Fine. Make yourself useful while you're out there. Donner's been acting weird, but Trip can't find a problem. He might need a tune-up, or you might spot something else."

Sam raised his eyebrows and mouthed "tune-up." Steve made a face and mouthed back, "You'll see."

Maria scanned the room to make sure everything was under control. Then her gaze fell on Sam, and he felt a moment's urge to hide in a dark corner. "Take New Santa to the stables. He hasn't met the robodeer yet."

"Reinbots," Daisy and Jemma called from the other end of the group.

"Iron Deer!" Tony shouted.

"Tony, no!" pretty much everyone shouted back.

Fitz and Mack started walking toward the door out of the workshop. Sam followed, grateful when Steve fell in beside him. "Workplace tension is workplace tension anywhere, huh?"

"When you've worked here as long as we have," Steve said, "you learn how to push all of each other's buttons."

"Hmm," Sam said, not because he disagreed but because he was trying to figure out a way to ask how long, exactly, they'd worked here without sounding like a nosy asshole.

Outside the workshop, the cold greeted him like an overeager puppy. It didn't feel as shocking as when he'd first come through. Was he acclimating, or was magic at play?

As they trudged along, the tension dissipated. Maintaining hostility in this sparkling snow was difficult. Funny, Sam hadn't noticed before that no matter how many people walked across it, the snow never got dirty.

The stables were the second-largest building in the Christmas Compound, after the workshop. It was an airy, well-lit two-story building, and Sam noticed immediately that it didn't smell like livestock. An elf in a dark green coverall bounded forward and grabbed Mack in an enormous hug. "Man, what's going on out there?" he asked as he thumped Mack's arm. "I got alarms going off all over the place."

Mack rolled his eyes. "Something breached the perimeter. Clint and Phil breached it worse."

Sam couldn't help it; he snickered and muttered, "Breach" under his breath. From Fitz's startled huff of laughter, he hadn't been as quiet as he thought.

The guy in the coverall looked over and beamed at Fitz. "Fitz, my man." He came toward them with his hand in the air.

"Oh, Trip, no," Fitz groaned, but he held up his own hand. Sam watched as Trip initiated a complicated handshake. It was fast and intricate, and Sam noted that Fitz's hand fumbled and shook a few times, bringing a frown to his face. But Trip and Mack were grinning, and when they reached the end, Trip caught Fitz in one of his giant hugs, too. Fitz was scowling when they pulled apart, but he looked more put-out than angry.

"You know I wouldn't forget you, man," Trip chided him.

"Much though I wish you would," Fitz fired back, and Mack and Trip laughed.

Trip gave Steve a more ordinary handshake and then looked at Sam. "Hi. Don't think we've met. I'm Trip. The stablemaster."

"Trip, this is Sam," Steve said. "The new Santa."

Trip's eyes widened, and he stuck his hand out again. Sam took it warily, fearing another routine like he'd put Fitz through, but Trip just shook hands excitedly. "Oh, man. We don't usually get the Santa through here 'til at least October. If I'd known you were coming, I'd'a tidied up."

Sam glanced around and wondered what Trip thought there was to tidy up. The place was immaculate. "It's fine," Sam assured him.

"Listen," Mack said, "we're gonna grab Donner and head for the perimeter, look for Phil and Clint."

"Yeah, sure, whatever you need."

Steve touched Sam's shoulder. "I'm going to radio in to the workshop, see if Daisy's got updates on the breach."

"Okay, sure," Sam said. "What can I do to help?"

"You're fine here for now. Stay with Trip, let him show you around the stables. You're still getting a feel for the place, and, honestly, there's a good chance you'd be in the way."

Sam gritted his teeth. He hated it, but he got it. He turned to Trip and plastered on a smile. "Show me around?"

Trip nodded. "Yeah, absolutely."

As Steve turned toward the stairs to their left and Mack and Fitz headed deeper into the building, Trip gestured around the large open space they were standing in. "This is the staging area. 'S where we set up the sleighs and the reinbots for the big flight." He pointed through an archway at a room almost as large and open as this one but full of what looked to Sam like car repair and maintenance equipment. "That's the garage. Tune-ups and repairs on the bots and the sleighs."

Trip pointed to a door on the other side of the staging area, this one tightly closed-off and made of heavy reinforced steel. "That's Tony's workshop. He tinkers with the design a lot. Stuff blows up."

Sam chuckled. Even with his limited exposure to Tony, he could easily believe it.

Trip raised both hands toward the area that took up the bulk of the building, two rows of five stalls each. "And here's the stars of the show: the reinbots."

"Robodeer," Sam said, and he and Trip grinned at each other.

In a rare instance of something around here being exactly like Sam expected, the first stall they came to bore a gleaming brass plaque that read Dasher.

That was where expectations stopped being met, because the stall's resident looked nothing like what Sam knew of reindeer. Or, rather, it looked exactly like a reindeer, only bigger, the size of a large horse, and instead of muscle and flesh, it was made from metal and electronics.

"Sam, meet Dasher."

Trip's voice was calm and quiet, but Sam jumped anyway, too overwhelmed by what he was seeing to deal with anything as mundane as words. "It's—he's?—it's?"

Trip laughed. "If they have gender, Dasher's a 'he.'"

"He's . . . remarkable." Several things clicked into place in Sam's mind. "Tony designed these?"

Trip nodded and gesture Sam toward the next stall and its plaque reading "Dancer." "We don't say it much, 'cause the guy's ego's big enough already, but the design's a masterpiece. We miss the live ones, but these guys provide an elegant solution to a problem we've been having for over a century."

"Which is?"

Trip leaned on the stall's closed half-door and stroked the eerily realistic fur on the reindeer's back. "When the only people who'd heard of a benevolent Christmas gift-giver were the Christians in Turkey, getting to everybody in one night was a piece of fruitcake. Ever since Nast and Coca Cola popularized the image of a fat guy with a big beard flying around in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, our numbers are through the roof. With these beauties, we can divide up the gifts—and the world—and get done in, well, one-ninth of the time."

"Gotta be a spell of some sort," Sam said. "So we can get it done in one night."

Trip spread his hands. "Magic is Not My Department. But even with a spell that slows down time, you still have to do the work. Doing one-ninth of the work sounds nicer to me."

Sam couldn't argue with that logic. "Does Tony call them 'Iron Deer'?"

"Yes," the others chorused.

Sam clucked his tongue. "Makes no sense."

"Don't have to tell us that," Trip said, laughing.

Across the aisle, a stall door swung open and one of the deer—Sam could only assume it was Donner—strode out. Sam stared in awe. If the reinbots were striking in stillness, they were mesmerizing in motion. Huge and graceful, Donner combined the sheer muscle of a real reindeer with the precision of finely crafted robotics. His synthetic fur gleamed in the stable's low light, and his eyes glowed gold. This was a creature that knew the purpose it was built to and would fulfill that purpose forever—or until its power source ran dry.

Sam looked further up and almost burst out laughing when he saw Donner's riders. The reinbot had been fitted with two saddles that looked like the most advanced tech available, but they still sat as close as possible, Fitz in front, Mack snugged up behind him with an arm around his waist. They looked like the cover of at least half of Sam's sister's romance novels—or would, if the people on those covers wore, in Fitz's case, a bulky geansaí Árann, and in Mack's, a sealskin parka lined with reindeer fur. And if they were prone to fiddling, as Fitz was, with an instrument panel built into their steed's neck.

"They're somewhere in here," Fitz said. He pointed to the lower left quadrant of the radar display in Donner's . . . what? Control panel? twisting to allow Mack a better view.

Mack and Fitz looked down at Sam and Trip from their perch atop the giant reindeer robot. "We'll bring them home," Mack said. "We always do. Don't you worry, Santa."

Sam jerked. That was the first time anyone had called him by the title (instead of 'New Santa,' more of a descriptor than a title, as far as he could tell). He would be forever grateful that the first time anyone did, they were telling him not to worry. Because, frankly, a lot of things about this scenario worried him.

After Mack and Fitz led Donner out of the stables, Trip asked, "So, you want to meet the rest of the team?"

Cupid snored. Blitzen had a construction defect that caused her right front leg to collapse if she landed too hard. Vixen worked best if you rubbed his belly. By the time they were done at Blitzen's stall, Sam's mind swam with a score of reinbot facts.

His most important realizations were that each reinbot had its own personality, for lack of a better word, and that there was no difference between how the elves treated these robots and how they'd treated the "real" reindeer, the ones who were now living on Uncle Nick and Aunt Melinda's land upstate. The only difference in the new team's treatment was that they had a mechanic to care for them, rather than a veterinarian.

Trip gestured to the last occupied stall. It was larger than the others. And, now that he was thinking about it, he realized that Trip, Fitz, and Mack had angled themselves to keep Sam's attention away from it. He snorted. Fine. They could have their big, dramatic reveal for—oh. Rudolph.

"Now the other eight," Trip was saying, "are communal. Any elf can take one out for any reason, if it's available and in good repair. But nobody besides Santa and the spousal Claus ride Rudolph. So unless you get hitched . . ." Trip grinned. "He's all yours."

Trip gestured, and Sam turned. And froze. Apparently there was no limit to how shocking this place could be.

For starters, Rudolph was huge. If the reinbots were horses, Rudolph was a Shire, towering and broad. Second, the efforts that had gone into making the other reinbots look realistic were completely absent here. Rudolph was obviously metal, a rich, dark red with gold antlers and gold accent patches along the body. His glowing red nose was dormant at the moment, but it looked to Sam to be a laser, and as Sam approached, Rudolph whuffled and lowered his head, light glinting off the golden glow of his eyes.

Sam hadn't touched the other reinbots, beyond a quick pat of Dasher's back to feel the skin. Trip had petted and stroked each one like a beloved pet, but Sam couldn't get over the fact that they were robots . Rudolph seemed to draw his hand. Maybe because he didn't look realistic. For all he was bigger and more powerful than the rest of the team, his obvious differences made him isolated, somehow. Lonely.

All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names.

Great. Now Sam was anthropomorphizing the robodeer.

"He's perfect," Sam said to cover his embarrassment.

Trip smiled but said, "Don't let Tony hear you say that. We'd never hear the end of it."

After Sam had spent a couple more minutes looking like a total nerd talking to a robotic reindeer, Steve came downstairs and leaned against the stall. "They're something, aren't they?"

Sam nodded and gestured to Rudolph. "Though how this one doesn't freeze when he goes out . . ."

"They're made of a rare metal called vibranium," Trip said. "When they're in motion, the metal absorbs the surrounding vibrations and kinetic energy, including its own. Raises the temperature enough to keep it from freezing."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "I'm no physicist, but that sounds like pure b.s. Comic book science."

Trip shrugged. "Just repeating what the man told me," he said.

Sam patted Rudolph's flank thoughtfully. "So, if they're made of vibranium, why does Tony call them 'Iron Deer'?"

"Because 'Vibranium Deer' sounds stupid," Trip and Steve chorused and then started laughing. Sam bet they'd heard it a hundred times from Tony. He fought down another urge to ask how long they'd been working together. With a 300-year average lifespan, most of them had probably been coworkers for longer than most humans lived. He was surprised to find he was a bit jealous of the close bonds they'd formed.

Trip's watch crackled to life, and a voice called, "Mack to stables. Do you copy, stables? Over."

"Hey, Mack, it's Trip. We read you, buddy. Over."

Mack's tone relaxed. "We found Clint and Phil. Turbo gave 'em a real big piece of his mind. We've sealed the breach, and now we're gonna do some sweeps, see if we can't find the original cause. Should be back within the hour. Over."

Trip beamed. "That's great news, buddy. We'll put the cocoa on for you. Over and out."

"You holly jolly well better," Mack said.

Fainter, Fitz's voice called, "With marshmallows. And whiskey."

"Over and out," Mack said, a trace of fond exasperation lacing his voice.

"All right," Steve said as Trip pushing the button that ended the communication, "looks like it's time to head back to the dorm, start the cocoa for our conquering heroes." He looked at Trip. "You coming?"

Trip shook his head. "I'll come up with the others once Donner's taken care of."

Steve clasped Trip's hand. "Later, then."

"Yeah. Good to meet you, Sam."

Sam shook Trip's hand, too. "You too, Trip."

As Sam and Steve crunched their way toward the workshop and the adjacent dorm, Sam realized that, even though it wasn't snowing and the air was still, there were no footprints from their trek over. Wherever he looked, the snow stretched around them in a pure, unbroken sheet. He stopped and looked over his shoulder. As he watched, the footprint he'd just left vanished, leaving only a faint trace of glitter to suggest it was different from the snow around it. Sam shook his head in wonder. Magic, man.

"Hey!" he said as he hurried to catch up with Steve, who hadn't noticed he'd stopped.

Steve looked over and smiled, and Sam's breath caught. That was a damned nice smile to have directed your way.

They'd reached the entrance to the dorm. There was a room in there for Sam, with a soft bed, a mug of cocoa, and warmth. But he couldn't step inside yet. The sky was literally a dome of stars, and the air had a clean, crisp brightness he'd never felt before.

Steve looked over at him, a soft smile on his lips. "What do you see?" he asked quietly.

"A place I could call home," Sam said as softly, not taking his eyes off the sky.

It seemed like it should've been a big confession, that after only one day he could see himself giving up his life to live here and be Santa Claus. Instead, all Sam felt was a settling, as though saying the words aloud had confirmed a feeling that had been growing in him all day, a feeling that he'd filled a hole in his life that he hadn't known was there.

"I'd like that," Steve said softly, like he was making a confession of his own.

Sam looked at Steve. He was so close, and his eyes literally sparkled in light of a sliver of moon. Great, Sam thought, on top of everything else, I got Twilight elves. "Look," he said, "I don't know how y'all—"

"I'd really like to kiss you."

Sam blinked. Steve was looking at him with wide, earnest eyes. Sam licked his lips. "Yeah," he said hoarsely. "Yeah, I—yeah."

Steve chuckled and crowded closer. "Yeah I yeah?"

Sam grinned. He reached out to swat at Steve, but Steve caught his hand and held it against his chest. Sam just had time to murmur, "Don't be a dingle bell," before Steve's lips were on his.

The tingling. Okay, Sam hadn't expected that, an actual tingling on his lips like when he sucked a candy cane. It startled him for a second, but then it started to feel really good.

And, oh boy, Steve could kiss. His mouth was confident heat and pressure and tingling against Sam's, his tongue sweeping Sam's lower lip before darting away, his fingers holding Sam's arms above the elbows. Sam sank into it, listening to the wind howl around them and feeling heated to his core.

When Steve drew back, Sam stared at him with wide eyes. "Y'all move fast around here," he said shakily.

Steve shrugged. "It's cold. We gotta keep warm somehow."

That startled a laugh out of Sam. "Yeah, okay," he said. He cocked his head. "How fast can I go without being considered uncouth?"

Steve batted his eyes at Sam. "Why, New Santa, are you propositioning me?"

"Long's your answer's honest."

Steve opened his mouth. Then he closed it and squinted at Sam, his hands still gripping Sam's elbows. Then he smiled, all heat and promise. "In that case, Mr. Claus, you go as fast as you want."

Sam's heart damned near galloped with want. "Not gonna lie: today took a lot out of me. I don't know how much I'll be good for. But I'm told there's a bed in there with my name on it, and I'd like you in it. Even if it's just to sleep."

Steve's smile softened. "I'd like that, too," he said.

Sam could do this. He could sleep beside this gorgeous elf and keep control. At least tonight.

But then Steve was hauling him through the dorm lobby and into the elevator at superhuman (or normal elf) speed. Then Steve was pushing him against the elevator wall and kissing him, hard and slick. Then Sam was taking in the general sense of a room decorated like a lavish set from The Nutcracker, pink and silver and white. Then they were peeling each other out of so damned many layers of jackets and sweaters, snow pants and long underwear, in between kisses and moans and whispers of "Yes" and "Please." Then Sam was discovering the coat of fine, almost invisible hair that covered Steve's gloriously muscled body and the fact that—

"Your dick and balls retract? Like a dolphin's?"

"Only less grabby." Steve shuffled, looking embarrassed and unsure, his hands crossed in front of where his cock had been emerging. "Have I mentioned that it's cold out there?"

Sam moved Steve's hands aside as he dropped to his knees in front of Steve's gorgeous flushed cock, which rapidly hardened again as Sam kissed every new inch that emerged.

"Sam," Steve said on a breathy laugh that was part admonition, part plea for more.

Sam looked up at him. "It's a smart adaptation. I don't know if elves evolve like humans or adapt via magic, but this is a good one."

Steve growled and hauled Sam to his feet. "If you can talk about elf evolution right now, I have a lot of work to do." Steve crushed Sam to his chest and kissed him ruthlessly, his tongue fucking into Sam's mouth, the pressure relentless. He tripped them onto the bed, and—

"Is now the wrong time to mention that this is the most comfortable mattress ever?" Sam groaned as Steve's teeth nipped their way across his jawline.

Steve hummed thoughtfully. "I'll accept it."

Sam laughed, though it turned into a moan when Steve started sucking on his collarbone. "Glad I meet with your—oh, shit, Steve—your approval."

"Definitely." Steve pinned Sam's wrists to the bed with his hands while he kissed and sucked and nibbled down Sam's body. Somehow, the jerk managed to find every last one of Sam's hotspots, reducing him to a panting, writhing mess before he'd hit Sam's navel.

Steve was as fascinated with Sam's cock as Sam was with Steve's, which made Sam appreciate how weird the scrutiny was.

"It's just . . . out there? All the time?" Steve demanded. "Where anyone could get at it?"

"Well, I do generally prefer—oh!—prefer to wear pants." Sam was aiming for arch, but Steve blowing experimentally over the head of his dick made it a difficult target.

"But anybody could grab it!" Steve said delightedly and proceeded to do just that, which sent Sam's eyes rolling back in his head. "Or what if your pants fell down? Filthy." Steve punctuated the word with a sloppy suck up the shaft, so Sam assumed he meant it as a compliment. "I'll think about it all the time, you know," he said slyly, looking at Sam through his lashes. "Every time I look at you, I'm going to think about your cock, and how easy it would be to . . . reach out and touch."

Sam groaned. "Steve—"

Steve swirled his tongue around the tip of Sam's cock. He made a pleased moan, low in his throat, and then looked up at Sam. "You've never had anyone comment on the taste of you?"

Sam raised his eyebrow, which he considered a remarkable feat, given his current state. "Something wrong with how I taste?"

"Oh, no," Steve said fervently. "I like it. It's just—I've never had sex with a human guy before, but I'm pretty sure stuff coming out of your dick that tastes like gingerbread isn't standard."

"What?" Sam scrabbled up onto his elbows and stared down at Steve. "No," he said emphatically. "No. I've tasted it, okay? It's not the worst thing I've put in my mouth, but it ain't gingerbread."

"Here," Steve huffed. He swiped his fingertip across the tip of Sam's cock, gathering precome. Sam shivered, but the sensation wasn't enough to distract him from the task at hand. Steve held his finger to Sam's mouth, his blue eyes dark as Sam leaned forward to take it into his mouth.

"What the hell? It has never tasted like that."

Steve shrugged, unperturbed. "Maybe being here triggered something."

"What the hell triggers gingerbread jizz?" Sam demanded.

Steve shrugged again, bored with the conversation. "Something to do with your elf ancestry, maybe?"

Sam stared at him. "My what?"

Steve's face fell. "Oh, sugar cookies. Do you not talk about that?"

"I do not, because it isn't true."

Steve frowned. "We've seen the genealogical records."

"What do you—no. Not talking about that now." His eyes widened. "So this is an elf thing, right? Not a me thing?"

"Yeah, I—" Sam saw the instant Steve realized what he was getting at. "Yeah."

Sam sat up and started making frantic shooing motions. "And everybody's different?" When Steve nodded, Sam shoved at one broad shoulder. "Turn. Turn." Steve looked at him blankly, so he huffed and did it himself, flipping himself around so he was eye to, well, eye with Steve's cock.

"Oh," Steve said faintly.

Steve's cock had withdrawn during this weird conversation, so Sam dragged his fingertips up and down what he could see, and the rest reappeared damned quick. He looked up at Steve, making sure he was watching as Sam sucked the head into his mouth, delighted by Steve's strangled gasp.

He should've known. Between the tingling lips and Steve's comment in the restaurant—Sam pulled off abruptly. "So when you asked if my mom kneed that cop in the peppermint stick?"

"Not really a euphemism," Steve admitted.

Sam hummed and returned his attention to Steve's cock. Steve's hard, gorgeous, peppermint-flavored cock. He'd just established his rhythm, lips tight around the shaft for suction, tongue pressed flat to the head, when wet heat engulfed his own cock (gingerbread, Jesus fucking Christ). Sam moaned, grabbed Steve's hip, and tried to hold on for the ride.

There's no such thing as finesse in a 69. It was all Sam could do to do right by the cock in his mouth while not missing out on the amazing things being done to his own. It was like a circuit, pleasure running from his mouth to Steve's cock to Steve's mouth to Sam's cock and back, flowing and building with every lick and suck and strangled moan until Sam was coming with a choked gasp of Steve's name. The post-orgasm hormones were flooding in, but he fought the lethargy long enough to tighten his lips and add the tiniest scrape of teeth. He slid his hand across Steve's ass and pressed two fingers against his hole. Steve gave an obscene groan, and Sam's mouth was flooded with—yup, that was warm, peppermint-flavored come, which was the weirdest thing that'd ever happened to him, but also so fucking hot it fizzled his brain.

Sam let the cock slip out of his mouth at the same moment Steve did, and they both hissed at the sudden coolness. Sam chuckled weakly, and Steve swatted at his leg. "Shut up," Steve said.

"Make me," Sam said.

Steve huffed. "You're such a child. Get up here."

"Don' wanna," Sam slurred, pillowing his head on his arms. "Comfortable."

"Yeah, well I don't wanna sleep next to your feet all night."

Sam's eyes sprang open. "You staying?"

"Well, yeah." Worry and doubt slipped into Steve's expression. "Unless you don't want me to."

Sam turned until he and Steve were face to face. "I definitely want. I just—I'm still learning the customs, you know?"

Steve gave him a sly grin. "Bet you didn't think you'd be learning this custom your first day, did you?"

Sam started laughing, quiet and unstoppable. What the hell was his life? He was at Santa's workshop at the North Pole, deciding whether he was cut out to be Santa Claus and having sex with an elf. There were probably ways his life could get weirder, but he couldn't think of any right now.

Steve's big, warm hand landed on his cheek, short-circuiting his impending freakout. "It's getting to you, isn't it?" he asked softly. "Too much to take in at once?"

Sam nodded. "Aunt Melinda got me drunk last time."

Steve's thumb rubbed soothing circles over Sam's cheekbone. "Well, you don't have any alcohol, so a good night's sleep will have to do." He grinned, and Sam's heart rate kicked up for a beat or two. "And maybe another orgasm in the morning."

If you're going to have the craziest day of your life, Sam thought as they drifted toward sleep, on their sides facing each other, Steve's hand on Sam's hip and Sam's hand on Steve's chest, there's not much better way to end it.

*

February 20: 307 days ago

After a good night's sleep, two more orgasms, and a shared shower (slightly nerve-wracking, since the bathroom was communal), the situation seemed just as weird, but Sam felt more . . . sanguine about it. He and Steve wandered into the kitchen/dining area they shared with their half of the floor. Steve poured mugs of hot chocolate from the carafe on the counter, the North Pole equivalent of the office coffee pot. Sam took a seat at the long table next to Mack and Fitz and across from Natasha and Bucky.

Fitz, bent over a tablet computer displaying a schematic, barely registered Sam's arrival, but the other three eyed him with a scrutiny that had him struggling not to squirm. When Steve set cocoa and an empty plate in front of him with an easy, affectionate squeeze of his shoulder, Mack's and Bucky's eyes lit up, and they leaned across the table to high-five each other.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Boys," she muttered.

Bucky beamed, unrepentant. "Come on, Tash, this is news. New Santa's riding the peppermint stick!"

Steve flushed an adorable red as he sat beside Sam. "I have so many regrets about you knowing that," he muttered. He stabbed aggressively at the towering stack of pancakes in the middle of the table. "We eat family-style," he told Sam. "Help yourself."

"Tch," Natasha scoffed. "As if you two could've gone without telling each other something like that. Bucky knows more about your life than his own."

Meanwhile, Mack was excitedly tapping Fitz's leg. "Fitz. Fitz, you hear? We totally called it."

Still engrossed in his tablet, Fitz patted Mack's hand. "That's nice, dear," he said absently.

Mack stared for a long beat and then sighed and asked, "You identify the source of the breach?"

Fitz's other hand tugged at his hair. "No, and it doesn't make sense. Something triggered the alarms, but according to the sensor logs, there was no breach."

"Let me look," Mack said. Sam grinned when he realized that Mack and Fitz were still holding hands under the table. "There," Mack said, pointing. "What's that?"

Fitz shook his head. "No, that's an authorized Level 7 access."

Across the table, Natasha and Bucky went still. "Okay," Bucky said carefully, "but other than Nick and Mrs. Claus, everyone Level 7 and above was at the workshop to meet New Santa." The four of them put their heads together. Steve looked mildly concerned but kept eating, so Sam shrugged and did the same, figuring someone would tell him if there was something he needed to know.

Clint came into the room as Sam was finishing his first stack of pancakes (cranberry orange and fucking delicious), and Phil came in a few minutes later. They didn't look like they were trying to avoid each other, but they weren't going out of their way to acknowledge each other, either.

"You two get your tinsel untangled?" Sam asked. A symphony of barely smothered laughs started up around him.

Phil looked like he'd bitten into a particularly tart lemon, while Clint's shoulders slumped. "No, we have not," Clint said.

"Well, see that you do," Sam said, barely realizing he'd slipped into the "come on, now, you can do better than that" voice he used on stubborn patients at the VA. "We want a merry Christmas, right? Not a tortured mutual pining one."

The smothered laughs turned into frantic coughs, and Clint and Phil clutched their cocoa mugs and scuttled from the room with their tails between their legs.

The instant they were gone, everyone exploded in uncontrollable laughter. Even Fitz had dragged his attention away from his tablet long enough to catch the exchange and was now laughing so hard he had to lean all his weight on Mack to stay upright.

"You," Natasha said, "are going to be a wonderful Santa."

The startled looks Steve and Bucky gave her confirmed Sam's suspicion that she didn't give compliments freely. He said, "Thank you, Natasha," as humbly as he could and crowed on the inside.

* 

Sam left the North Pole after lunch, having spent the morning with his somewhat overwhelming assistant Darcy, who explained more about how being Santa Claus worked. Only Steve, Fitz, and Mack saw him off, though they brought goodbyes from Jemma and Trip.

"What do you think?" Mack asked. "We gonna see you in December?"

Sam grinned, and his gaze slid to Steve. "Yeah," he said, "you will."

Steve's return grin was blinding, and he swooped in to press a fast kiss to Sam's lips and shove a foil-wrapped package into his hands. "Open it when you're alone," Steve whispered.

"Uh, okay," Sam said, dazed. He waved a floppy goodbye and started back through the ice field through the constant darkness.

Just before he moved out of hearing range, he heard Fitz say, "Wait, Steve, you and New Santa? When'd that happen?"

Sam caught Mack's sigh of, "Oh, babe" before the door to Nick's office opened and Sam stepped back into the "real" world—that no longer felt real at all. 

* 

Sam opened the package the instant he got back to his empty apartment. It contained a plate of peppermint-frosted gingerbread bars, and, well, if he'd entered a phase in life where just looking at holiday-themed baked goods got him hard, maybe it was for the best that life was about to undergo a radical change.  

* 

March 18: 281 days ago

There was singing in the hallway. Loud, drunken singing at—Sam checked the clock—4:15 a.m. He scowled at the ceiling. When the singing got close enough to resolve itself into the less-than-dulcet strains of "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," a spike of loneliness and longing stabbed his chest.

He lay in bed for fifteen minutes before acknowledging that he wasn't getting back to sleep. He rose, dressed, stretched, and headed toward the Mall for his morning jog.

He went slowly this morning. Really looked at the monuments and landmarks he passed. The trees. The people. He looked at it like a man who was moving away. A man who might not see these sights often anymore—if at all.

It was sad, he could admit that. But when he thought about what he was moving toward—pots of hot chocolate, magical snow that never looked marred, robotic reindeer, Steve—Aunt Melinda had asked him, that first day, whether what he would gain outweighed what he would lose. He hadn't been sure, at the time. Now he was.

He gave notice at the VA (four weeks, instead of the traditional two, because he needed time to pack up his life, and they needed time to find another sucker who would work embarrassingly long hours for embarrassingly low pay) and with his landlord (who hated him and would be glad to see the back of him). Then he called Uncle Nick.

"Funny," Uncle Nick said, "it doesn't feel like September."

They'd made a deal when Sam came back. Santa's Workshop stayed busy year-round, but Santa's job didn't kick into high gear until October. So they'd agreed that Sam would spend the next six months thinking about whether this was the right move for him and then, if the answer was yes, he would tie up his old life and return to the North Pole in September.

But there was no way Sam could last until September knowing a place existed where Darcy was terrorizing the interns, Clint and Phil were inventing peril to rescue each other from, and Steve was—well, where Steve was—and not being there.

"I'm going back," Sam said firmly. "I won't do anything . . . Clausian until October, but I can't be here when I know there is there."

Uncle Nick chuckled. "Had a feeling you might say that. You head back whenever you're ready. Your room's there for you." His voice turned sly as he added, "And so's your fella."

Sam snorted—mostly at the absurdity of Nick Fury saying "fella," but he saw no point in denial.

"Not much for a Santa to do before fall," Uncle Nick said. "You sure you won't be bored?"

Now Sam laughed outright. "Uncle Nick, it's a city full of actual magic. I can find something to do." 

* 

May 1: 237 days ago

There was singing in the hallway. A loud, drunk, screechingly off-key rendition of "Carol of the Bells" at—Sam checked the clock—2:39 a.m. He grumbled and burrowed deeper under the covers.

There was the sound of a door being yanked open, and Bucky yelling, "Would you coal lumps keep it down? Steve and New Santa are trying to sleep."

Darcy squealed. "New Santa's back? Hi, New Santa!"

Steve's arm tightened around Sam's waist, and he pressed his forehead to the back of Sam's neck as he gritted out, "I will kill them with my bare hands."

Sam chuckled. "Thought Bucky was like a brother to you."

"Which is why he should know better!" Steve raised his voice on the last two words, and a sudden, deafening silence fell in the hall, like cats freezing when they got caught doing something they shouldn't.

"Oops," Trip said.

With a lot of whispers and smothered laughter (Darcy, Bobbi, Jemma, and . . . Daisy?) and a lot of growling (Bucky), the carolers cleared out, and Bucky went back his and Natasha's room. Ordinary silence reigned again.

For a minute Sam was afraid he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. Then Steve slid his hand up and pressed the palm against Sam's chest, over his heart. Sam didn't know if it was magic or just the sense of warmth and safety and home he got from Steve, but he was out in seconds.  

* 

December 24: today

Sam woke up feeling like he'd been run over by his sleigh and nine not-so-tiny robodeer. Repeatedly.

He had no idea what time it was. Looking out the window didn't help; it'd been dark since October. His communicator watch made his wrist itch, so he took it off at night, despite repeated chiding from pretty much everyone. Steve's side of the bed was empty, but that didn't prove a thing. When he and Uncle Nick had been literally picked up carried out of the workshop the night before, Sam had had the impression that the elves would be awake and working until the nine sleighs were loaded and on their way.

The watch had somehow gotten under the bed. 4:55 p.m. UTC. Not a bad time to get up on Christmas Eve Day, with the sleighs set to leave at 9:00.

Someone had laid out Sam's Santa suit, which made him wonder how he'd gotten to bed last night. He honestly couldn't remember. He stroked the red crushed velvet and poked the padding. Tony had explained the suit's design in excruciating detail yesterday; the specs had gone over Sam's head, but the gist was that it'd been designed for maximum warmth, safety, and breathability, and that was all he cared about. He wouldn't put it on yet. The last thing he needed was to take his inaugural Christmas flight with a cocoa stain on his chest (Tony claimed it was stain-resistant, but unless it had magic or tech that allowed it to actively repel anything that fell toward it, that quality wasn't absolute).

Sam pulled on his forest green pajamas with penguins in Santa hats and found a pair of knitted socks that were actually both the same size (he was still learning, and he'd given the best ones as gifts). He grabbed his project bag, stuffed his feet into his slippers, and wandered into the common room.

Uncle Nick had been right about one thing: there wasn't a ton for a Santa Claus—let alone an Intern Claus—to do between May and October. Still, Sam felt he'd managed to fill the time well.

He'd gone on long rambles through the city, meeting the elves and learning the culture.

He'd met other holidays' lead figures: the Oak and Holly Kings (a thundering giant of a man named Thor and a terrifying woman named Sif, respectively); the Pumpkin King (that would never not be weird); and a very high-energy woman named Kitty who had no official title but assured Sam that she was "in charge of Chanukah. Inasmuch as anyone's in charge of Chanukah."

He'd mastered one new cookie recipe a week for his first seven weeks, until Steve pointed out that people would expect him to make those cookies, in copious quantities (had he mentioned elf metabolism?), for all of January and February.

He'd had Daisy turn off the universal translator long enough to learn a few words and phrases in Elfin, including Steve's real name.

He was learning how to knit. It was harder than everyone around him made it seem (so. damned. many. needles), but he was getting the hang of it.

Sam pulled on his robe and padded to the door. The hallway was quiet and empty. He vaguely recalled, during his 26th? 27th? hour awake, Tony and Daisy downing some horrifying concoction, which Uncle Nick called the elf equivalent of mixing Red Bull and Pixie Sticks, and screaming, "NOBODY SLEEPS AT CHRISTMAS!"

Sam walked toward the kitchen and tried not to feel lonely. But the realization that he might not see the elves he'd grown closest to—might not see Steve—until the day after Christmas hit him hard, and he had to pause and count his breaths until they stabilized, like he'd learned to do when Riley died.

When he made it into the kitchen, he had to stop again, overwhelmed by a mix of gratitude and wtf? Every surface bore some trinket or gewgaw from the elves. A glittery paper arrow from Clint. A chain of red paper stars from Natasha and Bucky. Origami jumping frogs from Fitz and Mack. And a banner hanging from the windows that read, "Merry Christmas, New Santa! We believe in you!" Most of the executive elves had signed it. And someone—Darcy, judging by the colors—had drawn a big pink and purple heart around Steve's name. Sam rolled his eyes, but he was grinning as he turned to figure out what to make for breakfast.

Sam made an enormous tower of French toast, from loaves of stollen he found in the breadbox. He ate a fair amount (though nothing compared to what the elves would eat; good Lord, elf metabolism), downed three mugs of hot chocolate, and cleaned up the kitchen. Then it was time to stop avoiding the Santa suit.

Sam came back from the shower whistling "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" and feeling like he could handle this. He wouldn't even be on his own this year; Uncle Nick and Aunt Melinda had arrived at the North Pole last month to oversee final preparations. If tonight went well, Nick would formally announce his retirement on New Year's Eve, and Sam would become "real" Santa. For tonight, he was still New Santa, Intern Claus, and the man who would be beside him in the sleigh had been doing the job longer than Sam had been alive, a thought he found simultaneously reassuring and terrifying.

"You don't, you know."

Sam jumped and almost dropped his towel. He gripped it harder and glared at Darcy, who was leaning against his bedroom door. "Don't what?"

Darcy shrugged. "See them when they're sleeping and know when they're awake. That'd be creepy."

Sam glared harder and tried to shoo her aside. "Don't you have work to be doing?"

She grinned sharply at him. Over his months of working with her, he'd discovered that she mixed ruthless efficiency, unvarnished bluntness, and gleeful perversion. He admired that skill but wasn't sure how he felt about her directing it toward him when he was standing in the hallway wearing only a towel. She, on the other hand, was dressed like a mall Santa's elf, in a short green velvet dress with white fur trim, black fishnet stockings, and thigh-high black boots. "Interim boss-man, you are my work," she said, spreading her hands. "No more important work to be done right now."

Sam narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

Darcy stood aside so Sam could get into his room. He put a finger to his lips as they went inside, but the bed was empty. Oh, that had better mean that Steve was sleeping in his own room for once, not that he was still awake in the workshop.

"You didn't think we were going to make you get into that suit by yourself, did you?" Darcy asked. "The thing's an engineering marvel, but it ain't user-friendly. Traditionally, this is Mrs. or Mr. Claus's job. So next year it'll be Steve doing this for you, right?" Sam blushed, but he wouldn't answer for Steve, no matter what he wanted the answer to be. "So I'm going to enjoy my historical moment while I can." She ran appreciative eyes across Sam's bare chest before smirking at him again. "The view's not bad, either." Sam glared at her. She chuckled and scooped the suit off the chair. "You and Nick on the same reinbot," she said. "What a holly jolly ride that'll be."

Once the suit was in her hands, Darcy switched into pure professionalism mode, and with her help, getting the suit on was relatively fast and simple. There was no way he could've done it alone. Too many buckles, zips, and toggles.

When the last clasp had been clasped, Darcy stepped back, gave him a thorough going-over with sharp eyes, and whistled. " Damn, New Santa. I hope a lot of people take pre-flight pictures, because Steve is going to want this for his alone-time, know what I mean?"

"Shut up," Sam muttered, face flushing hot.

Darcy hooted with laughter all the way to the stables.

All the other times Sam had visited the stables, they'd had an air of quiet calm, as though there really were large animals that needed a gentle atmosphere. Tonight, everything was pandemonium. Sam could barely hear himself think, and getting through the crowd to the entrance required deft maneuvering and a lot of strategic hip- and boob-thrusting on Darcy's part. By the time they reached the doors, though, word must've gotten around that the man in the red suit (well, a man in a red suit) had arrived, because the crowd of elves parted to let them pass—most everyone gawking as they went.

The crowd thinned once they were through the doors. Trip was unquestioned lord and master in the stables, and he kept a tight rein on who could and couldn't come inside the building at any time; Sam figured he was twice as unyielding on Christmas Eve. The only people inside tonight were the ones who would be flying the reinbots, a couple elves from production and distribution frantically filling and redistributing sacks of presents, and Tony. Because Trip might rule the stables, but Tony ruled the deer.

Sam had just started looking for Aunt Melinda and Uncle Nick when he spotted, instead, a very familiar blond head that towered above most of the other elves. Sam huffed and headed toward him.

"You go, New Santa!" Darcy called. "Give 'im what for!"

Sam rolled his eyes but wouldn't be deterred—not even when he realized that Darcy's loud call had brought everyone's attention to him. He itched under the weight of everyone's gaze but kept his own gaze locked on Steve—even when Teddy gave a sigh that was almost a swoon and muttered, "Oh, I am so going on the naughty list."

When Sam was standing in front of Steve, he tried to glare, really he did, but the heated way Steve's blue eyes tracked over him made that difficult. Sam swallowed. The suit was a cross between what he'd been taught to think of as a normal Santa suit—red velvet, white fur trim, well-padded—and a superhero costume—Lycra and state-of-the-art. It was a lot of things, but to his way of thinking, sexy wasn't one of them. He mostly thought of it as . . . weird, but apparently it was getting a lot of elf motors running. "You're supposed to be asleep," Sam said, but it came out with less anger and more want than he'd intended.

Steve looked dead on his feet. Sam knew he'd been grabbing catnaps here and there, but he'd been awake for the bulk of the last three days. But he offered up an exhausted but genuine smile, took Sam's hands, and kissed him hello. "Like there was any chance I was going to miss your maiden flight."

"Is that a euphemism?" Sam had no idea where Tony had appeared from, but he and Steve jumped at the sound of his voice, strung out and manic, and turned identical glares on him. "Please tell me that's a sex euphemism."

"Please," Bucky said as he sauntered up to them and dropped his arm heavily across Steve's shoulders, "the amount of sex these two have, I can't think of any flight they haven't taken."

Tony high-fived Bucky for that, and Steve scowled harder while he tried to get out from under Bucky's strong grip.

"Don't you clowns have somewhere to be?" Sam asked.

Tony spread his hands wide. "This is my domain!" he declared, encompassing the stables and everyone in them. "For tonight my Iron Deer ride!"

"Tony, no!" a dozen voices chorused.

Predictably, Tony stomped away to correct his maligners, but Bucky just rocked on his heels and looked insufferably smug. "Never you fret, New Santa," he said. "We've been doing this a lot of years. We know a trick or two." If that was supposed to reassure Sam about how tonight was going to go, it failed miserably.

Sam looked around, still hoping to spot Uncle Nick or Aunt Melinda (it shouldn't be this hard to find them), but his eyes landed on a trio of elves in the aisle between the stables. His stomach plummeted at the worried looks on their faces. He squeezed Steve's hands and nodded to Bucky. "Gimme a minute?" He knew the instant the others saw what he had seen, because their expressions tightened, and Steve gave him a jerking nod.

Sam quickly made his way to the three elves with their heads pressed close together, speaking in frantic whispers. America looked up and pressed her lips together, jerking her head toward Sam to get the others' attention. David eyed him warily, but Kate huffed and turned to face him.  "Clint, Phil, and Maria aren't here yet," she announced. When David and America glared at her, she rolled her eyes. "It's New Santa," she said, waving her hand at him. "Why wouldn't we tell him?"

"Darcy told us not to give him any more stress today," David said.

Kate crossed her arms. "Are we scared of Darcy?"

"Little bit, yeah," David said.

Sam huffed. "You seen them at all today?"

They nodded. "We went over flight plans this morning with everyone else," America said. "I saw Maria at dinner, but I don't think Phil and Clint have been around."

"Damn it," Sam muttered. The elves flinched, not entirely used to human cursing. "Okay, listen, why don't you three—"

Whatever Sam was going to suggest (honestly he wasn't sure) was cut off by the sudden beeping of every watch in the place. Sam sighed and looked at his wrist. "EXECUTIVE ALERT. PROTOCOL 14" scrolled across the screen in tiny red letters. He looked around for anyone who looked like they knew what was going on and spotted Maria striding toward—hey! There was Uncle Nick. Sam jerked his head and the others nodded and followed.

Everyone who'd seen Maria had the same general idea, and by the time Sam and the others reached her, there was way more of a crowd than there should've been given how few elves had been in the room a minute before. Everyone made room for Sam and his entourage, and he ended up—entirely by chance, he swore—next to Steve, the sudden press of bodies on all sides forcing them close together.

Maria, Uncle Nick, and Aunt Melinda finished up whatever whispered conference they were having, and then Maria looked up and nodded at Sam. "New Santa," she said calmly, only the slight tightening around her eyes betraying her stress.

Sam nodded back. "Chief. On a scale of one to five, how made-up is this crisis?" He winked at Kate and America, who were barely holding back laughter, and leaned harder into Steve, who kissed the top of his head and sounded like he was trying not to sigh.

Only then Maria said, "Zero," and everything went to shit.

"Zero, " Sam repeated. "Zero meaning . . . not made up at all?"

"Zero," Maria said through tightly clenched teeth, "meaning that while Phil and Clint were out looking for imaginary danger to get themselves into, they tripped an alarm, which triggered a hidden virus, which opened the barrier, which let in Grant and his goons. And his Krampuses."

"I will kill them this time," Bucky snarled as he and Natasha whirled into motion. Bobbi was shouting into her communicator and gesturing for the rest of the Security team to join her.

"You'll get in line," Natasha snapped back.

"Krampuses?" Sam demanded.

"I know the mythos makes it sound like there's only one," Steve said, "but they're a type of creature, and there are thousands of them."

Sam's eyes widened, and his voice spiked as he repeated, "Thousands?"

"Not thousands here," Maria said. "Two here."

"Well, that doesn't seem so—" Sam cut himself off when Steve started shaking his head.

"I don't know what you learned about krampuses," Steve said, "but they're big. Tall as a giraffe, heavy as an elephant, horns like a mountain goat. And mean, snowflake, nothing's meaner than a krampus on Christmas Eve."

"How can I help?" Sam asked.

"You can stay hidden and stay safe," Maria replied before going back to her intense conversation with Aunt Melinda.

"What? No!" Sam glared and crossed his arms. "I don't know how you usually do things around here, but I am not gonna hide like some Disney princess."

"All due respect, New Santa," Maria said, "you're not trained for this. This is a dangerous enemy with vicious allies. We've only had one Santa die during his tenure, and it took almost a century for Christmas to recover. It won't happen again on my watch."

Sam threw his hands up. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Actually, yes," Melinda said.

Sam looked up, blinking fast. Of all the people he had expected to be on his side, Aunt Melinda didn't even make the list. But if she was holding out a holly branch, who was he to snow on it? "Anything," he said.

Melinda pointed at Sam's watch. "In the process of ruining Christmas, Phil and Clint got themselves stuck down an ice fissure."

Sam was already moving toward the exit. "Yes. Absolutely. I'll go get them."

"Whoa, no." Melinda grabbed Sam's arm and held on tight. "Don't you dare. Maria wasn't kidding: you stay here and out of the way. We need you to call them. Talk to them. They're making themselves crazy out there waiting for the rescue team."

Sam huffed. "Fine," he said, surveying the chaos, "is there someplace quiet I can go?"

"My room," Trip said. "Upstairs."

Sam nodded. "Sounds great. Thanks." He glared at Aunt Melinda. "Someone is taking care of the giant tusked eleraffes, right?"

"Girphants," Trip said, laughing, and Sam fist-bumped him.

Aunt Melinda gave him one of the epically unimpressed looks that had always made him think she hated him (and, frankly, despite her letting him put his head in her lap while she got him wasted, he still wasn't convinced she didn't) and said, "Trust me. The krampuses are taken care of."

"Yeah?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," she said, and then—

Holy deus ex machina.

Or rather, draco ex machina.

Where Aunt Melinda had stood seconds ago was now a dragon. A huge, coiling dragon, metallic green body and pearlescent white belly flecked here and there with a single red scale to match the hair at mane and feet and the ridges along the back. The dragon's eyes glowed a fiery red—and they were staring right at Sam.

Sam took a tentative step forward. "Aunt Melinda?"

The dragon lowered her massive head to where Sam's right hand hung at his side. Then she sort of lifted the hand until Sam was—no other word for it—scritching between a giant ear and a wicked antler. "This is really fucking weird," he muttered.

The Melinda-dragon snorted and gave Sam a playful headbutt that knocked him clean across the room. He watched, mostly upside down, as she snaked out of the stables and took to the sky with a roar that, if Sam had been one of those krampuses, would've made him piss himself and run the fuck away.

Trip's upside-down face swam into focus in front of him. "Man, you okay?"

"My aunt is a dragon," he announced, not necessarily to Trip, just to . . . put it out there.

"Yeah," Trip said, offering him a hand up. "You didn't know?"

Sam shook his head gingerly, not sure how hard she'd rattled him. "She's just . . . Aunt Melinda who doesn't like me. Now she's Mrs. Claus and a dragon?"

"Well," Trip said, scratching his neck and looking sheepish, "She's kind of . . . always been a dragon? I mean, the Dōngzhì Festival started, what, Han Dynasty? She's been doing this way longer than we've been doing Christmas."

Sam stared at him, mouth slightly agape. "Mrs. Claus is a Winter Solstice dragon. Of course she is." He shook his head. Clint and Phil needed him now; he could freak out about Aunt Melinda later.

He trudged up the stairs to Trip's room, unsurprised when Maria joined him; a little surprised when Steve did, too. That confusion cleared up when Steve toed off his boots, collapsed onto the bed, and was snoring before Sam had the call connected.

Sam looked fondly at Steve's sprawled form, watching the rise and fall of his chest and the way the tension slowly eased out of him, until Maria kicked his foot with her boot. "Call now; swoon later."

"Yeah, yeah," Sam muttered, searching for Phil and Clint in his contacts and making the call.

The connection crackled to life, but before Sam could say anything, Maria leaned over his shoulder and said, "Base to Pining Dorks. Come in, Pining Dorks. Over."

Sam raised an eyebrow at her. "Pining Dorks? Really?"

She shrugged. "If the snowshoe fits . . ."

There was a weak cough from the other end of the call, and then Clint said, "We're here, base. Go ahead and say 'I told you so.' Over."

Maria opened her mouth to say just that, but Sam put his hand over her face and pushed her away. "Really not my style. Over."

There was a brief pause and then, "New Santa? What are you doing, man? You got a ride to get ready for. Over."

"Not while you two are stuck in a fissure and we've got krampuses krampusing around. Over."

"Krampuses?" Clint muttered, more to himself than to Sam. "Snowflake."

"You tripped something in the security system," Maria put in from behind Sam. "Let in Grant and his cronies. Over."

"I—Phil—there was—"

And Sam, Sam was a patient guy. It was a must in his job—all of his jobs. But so was knowing when to stop being patient and lay out cold, hard facts for someone who didn't get it. "Look," he said sharply, startling Clint into silence, "you two have been dancing around each other for, if everyone is telling me the truth, over a decade. That's asinine. You know that, right?"

Phil's voice joined Clint's on the call, even weaker and even more obstinate-sounding because of it. "The work policy—"

"Fuck the work policy," Sam snapped. "You are a magical Christmas elf. Change the policy. Ignore it. I don't care. If you fools don't get your shit together, you are gonna ruin Christmas. Now work it the hell out, or it's coal in both your stockings. Over."

Sam heard startled snickering on both sides of the call. He looked guiltily at Steve, who grinned sleepily and closed his eyes again.

Anything Phil or Clint might've intended to say next was lost beneath a stampede of feet as the rescue team arrived to extract them from the fissure. It was a long, arduous process, from what Sam could hear of it, but eventually they were on solid ice again.

"Can you fly?" he heard Bobbi ask.

"I think we better sit this year out," Clint said.

"Who are your backups?"

"Justine and Other Kate."

"On it," Maria said, already stepping out of the room. Sam had a feeling she wouldn't be back; now that Phil and Clint had been seen to, the rest of the invasion could be cleaned up.

"Hey," Sam said, "anybody want to give me the SparkNotes version of who these assholes are? Over."

There was a long, awkward pause, and then Steve's sleepy voice said, "They're part of a banned splinter group of brainwashed fascist elves who believe, among other things, that all Santas should look like Thomas Nast drawings. When Nast's first Santa drawing was published in 1862, the real Santa was Trip's grandfather Gabe. Some elves started getting bad ideas."

"Elf Klan," Sam muttered. "Great."

"There aren't many of them," Bobbi insisted. "Once Mrs. Claus deals with the krampuses, I can't imagine they have much left."

A shot rang out. "Oh, Bobbi, you shouldn't say things like that."

Sam didn't recognize that voice. He didn't like that at all.

"What the hell?" Steve jumped off the bed, and his use of human profanity told Sam everything he needed to know about the severity of the situation. Mouth set in a grim line, Steve stepped up behind Sam and gripped his shoulders. "That's Grant."

Sam lived through a lot of shit in the Air Force. One thing he never thought he'd have to endure again was listening to a firefight while he was stuck at base. His fingers clenched and unclenched on Trip's desk, and his pulse thundered. Steve came around and settled in his lap. They must've looked ridiculous, since Steve was taller and broader, but he made Sam feel anchored in a way he desperately needed right now.

There wasn't a lot of talking from Clint and Phil's end of the call. Quippy one-liners during fights were for comic books and action movies. Getting a good read on what was going on was almost impossible, but the amount of pained grunting and swearing from unfamiliar voices Sam had the general impression that the good elves were kicking ass.

Then they heard the roar.

Sam jumped, and his grip around Steve's waist tightened. He winced apologetically, but Steve squeezed his arm and smiled. "It's okay," he promised. "That's a good sign."

"Was that Aunt Melinda?"

Steve beamed. "It sure was."

Aunt Melinda. The giant fucking dragon. Sam wasn't sure if the roar meant she'd dispatched the krampuses or just found them, but either way it was a bad time to be a krampus at the North Pole. A long, colorful string of mixed human and elf profanity from the voice Sam had come to recognize as Grant's filled the air as he and his cronies realized they were losing the battle on all fronts.

"Better get running, Grant," Bobbi teased.

"Your secret weapon's about to become dragon chow," Clint added.

"This isn't over!" Grant screamed, a soft "Oof " suggesting he'd hit somebody. "You and your false Santaaagh!"

Grant cut off with a yelp and a thud that sounded like a body hitting ice. There was a shocked pause, and then Phil's voice, calm and just barely out of breath, said, "The first Santa was a Turkish ascetic. Dingle bell." His sigh was audible across the call, and Sam pictured him shaking his head sadly while he wiped Grant's blood off his knuckles with a linen handkerchief. "Thomas Nast has so much to answer for."

"Good job, everyone," Sam said. His heart was pounding, and the adrenaline crash was going to be a bitch, but for now he could slump against Steve and wait until someone ordered him to do something else ridiculous.

His reprieve lasted seconds, rather than minutes, as Uncle Nick stuck his head through the door. "That sure was fun, wasn't it?" he said dryly. Sam snorted, and Nick jerked his head toward the hall. "It's time."

Grumbling, Steve got off Sam's lap to let him stand. Sam expected him to return to the bed and go back to sleep, but instead he stayed on Sam's heels as they moved toward the door.

Sam paused and glanced back, Steve almost slamming into him. "Where do you think you're going?" Sam asked.

"With you."

"You should be sleeping."

"I will sleep plenty once you're gone," Steve scoffed. "But if you think I'm letting you go on your first Christmas flight without a big, showy goodbye, complete with dipping you in front of the elves, then you are a deeply misguided man."

Sam opened his mouth to protest. He caught motion from the corner of his eye and turned to see Uncle Nick shaking his head. "Don't argue with the man, Sam," he said.

Sam figured Nick knew what he was talking about. He closed his mouth, rolled his eyes at Steve, and walked out of the room.

Spirits were once again high in the stables, but with a tense undertone, as if everyone was braced for something else to go wrong. But the reinbots were out and harnessed to the small sleighs, tossing their heads and pawing restlessly at the ground.  Sam had never seen a more awe-inspiring sight.

Phil and Clint were standing next to Dancer, giving last-minute instructions to Justine and the one who'd unfortunately been saddled with the nickname "Other Kate." Those two rolled their eyes a lot, but Phil and Clint gripped each other's hands, and from where Sam stood, that looked like progress.

On the second floor catwalk, Daisy had set up the command center where she would oversee the night's flights. Trip sat on one side, the first point of contact (no matter what Tony said) if anything went wrong with the reinbots. Fitz sat on the other, tasked with making sure only children could see the sleighs flying overhead. Mack sat on Fitz's other side because, well, Mack went where Fitz went.

Bruce and Pepper were physically restraining Tony from last-minute Iron Deer tinkering. Teddy was, somehow, texting his boyfriend in the Chanukah realm. Bobbi was sparring with Natasha. Kate was talking into her watch, sending preflight updates to Jemma, Darcy, and everyone else who hadn't come up with a viable excuse to be here.

This was Sam's family now. These were his people. His heart overflowed with love for them.

Aunt Melinda had returned to human form, although now that Sam knew what he was looking at, he could see that other shape flickering beneath her surface. She was sitting on Rudolph's broad metal back in the special seat the other reinbots hadn't been designed for. The other sleighs would each carry two: one from Distribution and one from Security. But Rudolph and his sleigh could bear three, and this year those three would be Santa Claus, Intern Claus, and Mrs. Claus. Maria had grumbled about them not having security backup, but between two combat veterans and a giant freaking dragon, Sam trusted they could handle any threat.

Sam and Steve walked over to Rudolph. Sam nodded to Aunt Melinda while Steve patted Rudolph's flank. When Aunt Melinda nodded back like they were equals, Sam damned near fell over.

Sam noted the quiet fondness in Aunt Melinda's eyes as she looked at Steve. He saw Steve's rapport with Rudolph (which seemed nowhere near as weird as it should've). He looked at the sleigh's padded bench seat, the one usually reserved for Santa Claus and "the spousal Claus," and he thought, And why the hell not?

He leaned over and nudged Steve with his elbow. When Steve looked over, Sam nodded toward the bench. "What do you think? You gonna want that seat next year?"

Steve stared at him for a minute, mouth slightly agape. Then he whooped, grabbed Sam around the waist, and pulled him into the most thorough kissing of his life—complete with the promised dip at the end. When Steve righted him and pulled away with a wet smacking sound, the entire stable burst into raucous cheers. Sam and Steve grinned at each other, arms wrapped tight around each other's waists.

"You're going to be a great Santa, you know that?" Steve asked.

"We'll see," Uncle Nick rumbled.

Sam and Steve jumped apart. Sam wasn't sure how they'd missed Uncle Nick coming into the room. He looked over—and then looked again, dumbfounded.

Uncle Nick had been a presence in Sam's life as long as Sam had had life, and he had never, not once, seen the man wear any color other than black. Looking at him now, striding across the stables like he owned them (which, okay, he kind of did), Sam had to wonder if that was a deliberate choice to make the Santa suit look that much more impressive. And it was impressive. Between Uncle Nick's tall form, his eye patch (even hidden behind a pair of flight goggles), and the high shine of his black boots, it would be immediately apparent to anyone that this was no idle mall Santa. This was the Santa who got shit done.

Sam whistled. "Damn, Santa," he said. Nick grinned and tossed over a second pair of goggles. Sam reached up for them, but Steve caught them and positioned them gently. Sam gave a scowl no one believed. "Coulda done that myself," he grumbled.

Steve smiled and readjusted the strap. "I love you, too, New Santa."

Sam rolled his eyes. Elves, man.

"All right, New Santa," Uncle Nick called as he swung himself up and into the sleigh. "Let's fly."

Sam gave Steve one more kiss for luck and hauled himself into the sleigh with considerably less grace than Uncle Nick had (the cut-out was really high off the ground, okay?). Uncle Nick nodded to Trip, who flipped the switch that opened the giant doors at the back of the stable. The night lay still and open before them, like a promise, the sky perfectly black and luminous with stars. An expectant hush filled the air, full of promise and possibility. The way Christmas had felt when Sam was a kid.

Uncle Nick and Aunt Melinda were going to be trapped in this sleigh with him for an undetermined, magically stretched period of time as they delivered presents to one-ninth of the Christmas-celebrating children in the entire world, and Sam intended to take full advantage of his captive audience to ask the questions that had started accumulating in his head the moment Uncle Nick opened that secret door in the back of his office. Questions about economic disparities and gift-giving. About kids who believed in Santa but whose parents didn't want that belief in their lives and homes. About what happened to Santas after they retired—the sad, hushed way everyone talked about Peggy suggested that sometimes the process went wrong, and Sam needed to know that shit if that might be his fate someday.

That was for later. Now was for catching Steve's eye and smiling as the sleighs lifted from the ground, the powerful motion of the reinbots' legs setting up a smooth rhythm through the air. Now was for waving at the elves on the ground, who cheered and waved back madly. Now was for the anticipation, and the thought that he'd never been as excited as he was in this moment.

And he heard Nick exclaim, ere they flew out of sight, "Happy Christmas to all!"

And Sam, hoping their stubborn elf asses would actually go to bed, called, "And to all a good night!"