mistletoe
Maria remembers the last Christmas she properly celebrated.
She was in the army. The troop that had become her family, her brothers and sisters, had gathered around. They watched Christmas movies and ate junk food that had been shipped to them from loved ones.
It was nothing magnificent but she finally felt at home.
Six months later would lead to the death of every soldier that Maria spent that Christmas with. Maria, still covered in sand and blood, would be discharged from the army faster than they brought the bodies home.
SHIELD swooped her up and she didn’t let herself get attached again. She couldn’t lose any more brothers and sisters. Therefore she didn’t let anyone get close enough to be her friend.
Somehow, Phil wormed his way close. And with Phil came his agent, Clint. Clint introduced her to Laura and Melinda became her supervising officer and suddenly Maria had people trying to get close to her and she wouldn’t let them.
It takes two years before Maria finally lets someone get close. An overenthusiastic punk named Barbara Morse.
Maria is still learning to open up to people when Clint suddenly brings his mark home with an extra person in tow.
Maria hasn’t been around a teenager in forever.
Being around the sisters makes Maria want to open up. They in some way understand her hurt.
Maria ends up telling Yelena things that not even her SHIELD mandated therapist knew. In turn, Yelena shares things with her that nobody else knows.
Natasha was very different from her sister. Natasha reminded Maria of herself. Closed off and afraid to open up, not willing to be hurt again.
It takes three months before Maria realizes that she likes Natasha. Not in a sisterly way and not just as a friend.
Maria takes the feelings and buries them in a deep pit to never see day again. Natasha is not ready for a relationship. Maria’s not willing to do anything either.
She didn’t even know if Natasha liked women.
But most of all, she was in a position of power. She knows that the girls had been taken advantage of by someone in power and she refuses to blur those lines.
So Maria settles for being their friend and supports them. She learns to take off the ‘Hard-ass Hill’ mask that she molded to keep herself safe. She remembers how to just be Maria.
When she gets told that she’s going to the Barton farm to celebrate Christmas, she is not happy. She has so much work on her plate and Nick knows that she doesn’t celebrate.
But then he tells her that it was all Yelena’s idea and Maria’s eyes land on the teenager curled in the corner of the room with an alien cat, looking much younger than seventeen, and folds.
She never wanted to upset Yelena. She makes sure to pull her aside and apologizes and explains.
Yelena tells her that she is her family. That she loves her.
Maria loves the kid too. She wasn’t very on board with the idea of a minor on board the Helicarrier but now she can’t imagine life without her.
The ride down to the farm consisted of a very long car ride stuck in a confined space with Natasha. It had been awkward at first until Natasha asked her about the last time she celebrated Christmas. From there they compare movies they have seen and then music that they like.
Despite the fact Maria despises people touching her radio, she lets Natasha have full control. Natasha surprisingly likes loud music, the kind with deep bass that echoes in your bones and the drums that make your heart rate spike.
Maria likes that kind of music too. It quiets the demons that lurk in her head. The only way to quiet something loud on her mind is to drown it with something louder.
At the Barton farm, Maria sleeps on a pull-out couch. It’s lumpy but she’s slept in worse places. She takes up at five in the morning just like always and discovers Laura already in the kitchen, tired as she nurses a wiggly Lila.
It’s been a long time since Maria’s spoken with Laura since she retired to look after her children. The last time Maria saw her was shortly after Lila was born in the hospital. Maria was actually the one to babysit Cooper while Clint supported his wife through childbirth.
Maria was not a child person but she managed to keep Cooper alive while Bobbi and Clint cheered Laura on.
“How’s Lila been?” Maria asked quietly as she takes a seat at the table next to Laura. The tired woman rests her head on Maria’s shoulder.
“Fussy. She’s teething,” Laura screws her face up. “Cooper wasn’t this hard to get through his teething phase.”
Maria lets out a sympathetic tut, letting her friend lean against her. “Are you up for decorating today?”
She can feel Laura perk up slightly. “Yes. Clint’s been very excited to show the girls how to ‘properly’ decorate.”
“Should I be worried?” Maria can’t help the grin that spreads across her face as Laura chuckles.
“He made sure that I knew where all the boxes to dig out were,” Laura replies with a soft huff of laughter.
And that sounds exactly like the kind of thing Clint would do. He wanted those girls to have a nice Christmas just like she did.
Those girls deserve a nice Christmas.
“How many boxes do you have?” Maria questioned with a grunt as she passes another box down to Natasha from halfway down the attic ladder.
“Enough.” Clint replies, appearing at the top with another cardboard box. “We have like four more.”
Natasha passes the box down to Yelena who stacks it against the wall with about a dozen other boxes of Christmas decorations.
“This one’s heavy,” Clint warns only after he drops it into Maria’s arms. Maria nearly topples backward at the sudden weight, Natasha’s hands suddenly pushing her upright before she falls as the box tumbles from her hands.
Yelena appears, catching the box that causes her to stumble backward, Maria reached out to yank on her sweater before she fell into the stack of boxes against the wall.
“Oops?” Clint gives them an innocent grin as Maria lets go of Yelena and pulls herself out of Natasha’s grip.
Maria gives him a glare that causes his grin to fall and his eyes to widen. Maria then lets out a snort of laughter and Clint relaxes at the sound. “Give a warning before you nearly break my neck, next time.”
From there they carry the boxes down to the first floor where Laura was with the kids. Once the boxes are stacked against the wall by the tree, Clint picks the first box up and sets it on the coffee table. “Let’s see what’s in here.”
Clint peels the flaps back to reveal an array of items. There was tinsel for the tree, stocking hooks for the mantel, and santa hats. “Woo! Knew I picked a good one,” Clint immediately pops one of the santa hats onto his head and turns to look at Yelena. “What do you think?”
Yelena eyes him, her nose scrunched in confusion as Clint shakes his head to get the pom-pom on the end of the hat to move. “Uh… it’s nice?”
It’s phrased as a question and Maria turns her head to hide her grin as Yelena tries to spare Clint’s feelings.
“You look like a dingus,” Natasha replies, not sparing his feelings like Yelena had. Maria didn’t even know that the redhead knew that word.
“Great,” Clint pulls the hat from his head and shoves it onto Natasha’s. “Wear that one.”
Clint holds up a second one from the box and approaches Yelena who started to back away from him. Clint grins and darts after her as Yelena takes off. Laura calls after them to watch their step when she hears a thud and Natasha looked slightly worried about Yelena.
Yelena reappears and dives behind Maria, grabbing her arms and using her as a human shield between her and Clint.
“Hey! No using Maria as a shield!” Clint points a finger sternly at Yelena, unable to keep the firm look on his face as his lips twitch up in a grin.
“She doesn’t mind, right Masha?” Yelena questioned, looking up at her. It takes a second before they both realize what came out of Yelena’s mouth wasn’t her name. “Maria.” Yelena quickly blurts out a correction, letting Maria go. “Sorry.”
Maria doesn’t know if it was a simple slip-up. “It’s okay…” She says, turning to look at Yelena. Yelena averts her eyes, glancing over at her big sister anxiously.
“It’s a nickname…” Natasha looks up at Maria, reaching out to cup the back of Yelena’s neck and give it a gentle squeeze as she pulls her little sister against her. “Like how Bobbi calls you Ria. She won’t do it again if you don’t like it.”
Maria can feel Clint and Laura watching the conversation in front of them unfold.
“I don’t mind,” Maria doesn’t quite understand where Masha came from Maria but she definitely doesn’t mind Yelena calling her that although she thinks that it may be something more than a simple nickname.
“At least you didn’t slip up and call her Marnie. Man, that poor senator didn’t know what hit him when he messed up and called Maria that,” Clint breaks the tension as he recalls the time Maria, relatively fresh to SHIELD, was called Marnie Hall by some old white man who thought he was better than her because she was a woman.
Natasha murmurs something to Yelena quietly in Russian. Maria only picks up the words “it’s okay” before Natasha glances up at her. “Thank you, Masha.” She says.
Maria tries to ignore the way her heartbeat picks up as the name easily falls between Natasha’s lips. She plays it off, turning the attention back to the box.
Twenty minutes later finds Yelena wearing a santa hat. Clint also scrounged up enough so that he, Laura, and Maria could wear one as well.
The hat is scratchy and hot but Maria endures it as they decorate, Christmas music playing in the background.
“What’s this?” Yelena holds up something from one of the boxes and Clint glances over.
“Oh! That’s mistletoe,” Clint grins, moving toward Yelena. “It’s tradition for people to kiss underneath them when they pass under them together. We hang it up in the doorway.”
Yelena’s face screws up in disgust as she eyes the fake plant. “Kiss?”
Clint chuckles at the look on her face. “Yup. And a berry would be removed each time someone kissed under it until there were none left. But this one is fake to last through the years, not to mention real mistletoe is poisonous.”
“Do you have to kiss underneath it?” Yelena passes the fake plant to Clint.
“Oh--” Clint seems to realize that the mistletoe could pose some problems. “No. Not if you don’t want to. We don’t even have to put it up this year.”
“No!” Yelena reaches out to grab his hand when he moves to put the plant away. “You can… you can put it up.” She says. “It’s okay.” It’s obvious that she doesn’t want to put a stopper in any Christmas traditions that the Bartons usually did.
“Well… then you can kiss them on the cheek, forehead, hair, or just blow them a kiss if you want,” Clint looks down at the fake plant. “Or you can just ignore the plant.”
Yelena shrugs and Clint drops the subject but does hang the plant in the doorway to the kitchen where it usually hung.
Maria eyes the plant before Cooper darts over to Clint as the man steps off the small stool he used to reach. Clint scoops his son up and peppers his face in kisses under the mistletoe until the toddler is shrieking with laughter.
Yelena relaxes slightly at the sight.
Maria turns her attention back to the box in front of her that Natasha was now rifling through.
This was… nice.