forty-three.
Peter was nervously flittering around in the apartment awaiting Wade's arrival. Nat thought it was cute how nervous he looked. He brushed his hair maybe five times, and he brushed his teeth twice already. He asked Nat if he should get dressed and she declined, telling him it was outrageous to wear regular clothes on Christmas morning. He laughed and seemed to relax a little, but then he looked at where Steve and Bucky and Bruce and Tony were all standing together.
It was nice to see them all together, all getting along despite everything. But it wasn't hard to see the way that Steve looked at the others. He looked almost jealous of the way that Tony and Bruce were cuddled up to one another, all happy and shit, drinking hot chocolates with smiles on their faces. But when Steve caught their eyes, he smiled. Because he was happy for them, truly, no matter how badly it hurt.
And on the topic of Wade coming, Tony was the only one phased. Which, was weird. Even after Wade tried to kill them, they seemed so content when he was around. Almost like he wasn't any kind of problem, to begin with. Almost like the fight never happened... But it did, didn't it? Their wounds, those were real, right? There's no way all of them would fake something like that... Right?
Peter shook his head and decided that Christmas was no time for conspiracy theories like that. It was a time to forget everything and just run with this blessing they'd given him because for some reason, spending Christmas with Wade kinda felt like one.
He bounded downstairs to his still unfinished room and grabbed the two big garden trash bags full of Christmas gifts. It was easy to get money for all of these gifts. He'd saved his allowance up for months, and when he asked Tony for "a little spending money" Tony up and gave him $500 like it was pocket change. He was told to either use it all or keep the change, and he used all but maybe $85 and he planned to put it all towards lunch money.
He even bought Aunt May something, despite not having seen or heard from her in weeks... Either she was horribly injured somewhere, or just didn't want anything to do with Peter right now. He figured it was probably the latter and decided that if she didn't want him, then he wouldn't put in the time to think about her. Yea, he bought her the gift, but whether she'd ever get it or not was up to her now.
He carried his somewhat heavy trash bags back up to the apartment and giggled as Natasha came to help him unload the gifts by the tree.
"I think next year we'll get a bigger tree. This little one's getting lost in all these gifts." She smiles, and he agrees. The only part of the poor little tree still visible is the little star on the very top.
"Maybe we can get one of those four-foot ones, so it's still small but not..."
"Miniscule?" Nat finishes, and Peter agrees again. Nat laughs and kisses Peter on the cheek before ruffling his hair.
Peter rushes to brush his hair again. He hears footsteps and sees Bucky reflected in the small, busted bathroom mirror. His arms are crossed, loosely, unthreatening. He smiles softly.
"Normally I wouldn't condone this... But if anything escalates today, I'll take care of it for you. This is your first Christmas with us, and I don't want it to be the last." Bucky stepped into the small room and Peter hugged him. He was so grateful for Bucky as a parental figure, not just because of the way Bucky treated him, but because Bucky'd been treated poorly and he knew how to react to some things better than say, Steve.
Steve went into the ice, sure. Steve also got the serum, sure. But Steve chose to have his. Bucky's was tortured into him. Forced into his veins and into his mind. He never got a choice, never had a say. And he has to live with that every day of his life. The pain that his arm regularly causes him, the memories of what he'd done. There was never an escape. Never would he have a chance to escape that torment inside of him.
He could just put it on the back burner for a while like he'd managed to do today. Being surrounded by the people that love him makes it a little bit easier to cope. To know that these people knew what he'd done and still loved him for everything he was and all that he was worth meant more to him than he thinks anyone could imagine. It made him feel... Human, knowing that these people saw him for more than what he was and what he could do.
"Come on, your dads are getting antsy." He laughed as he walked Peter back out of the bathroom. There was no way that Bucky missed the blanket that Peter wore, it made him smile seeing that Peter appreciated it.
When they walked back into the kitchen, Nat was in the middle of snapping a photo of Tony and Bruce kissing under the mistletoe, and Steve was in the background making a stupid face that Nat was laughing at the whole time.
Everyone went a little still when there was a knock on the door. Bucky motioned for Peter to stay put before going to open it. Bucky was met with the red mask, and also an old tacky Christmas sweater and he laughed before ushering Wade inside.
Wade held a legitimate looking Santa sack full of stuff. He sat it down by the other presents before walking over and giving Peter a tight hug. Peter buried his face into Wade's shoulder, and his sweater smelled like chocolate, gunpowder and cigarette smoke. Somehow it was soothing. He heard Nat's camera click from somewhere in the room but doubted she was focused on them in the slightest. When Peter pulled out of the hug, Nat put her hand on Wade's shoulder and gently urged him to go introduce himself in some kind of non-threatening manner.
Wade cracked off some joke about not making any promises of being non-threatening before going towards where Steve and Bruce stood with Tony. Peter watched on anxiously before remembering something he forgot. He dug around a little around the presents before bounding up to Bucky with a wide smile and fastening a Santa hat onto his head. Bucky laughed a little and shook his head before taking the hat off and putting it on top of Wade's mask.
"Alright boys, let's get this show on the road, we've got a lot of stuff here." Nat smiled as she sat on the floor by the bedroom door. Steve agreed and sat by the pile of boxes, the self-designated Santa Claus for the evening.
Peter sat down on the floor at the back of the group. He didn't expect a whole lot, and that was okay. He had people who loved him and that was enough... Speaking of. Wade plopped down right beside Peter and they automatically leaned together until they were pressed side to side. Peter put his head on Wade's shoulder as Steve handed out the first round of presents.
By the third round of presents, Peter already had a cute little pile beside of him. A handful of really good thermal socks, web fluid ingredients, brand new computer upgrade parts, and a belt from Natasha, because she keeps insisting that he needed one. Wade asked Steve to get out the top box in his bag for Peter, and Steve carefully passed the box over.
Peter furrowed his brows at the box before tearing it open. Under the paper was a sleek black box. He glanced up at Wade who urged him to open it. Inside was a brand new pair of Hender Scheme NMD R1 Adidas and Peter had never felt more in love in his life. He took one of the black shoes out of the box and wanted to cry because these were the exact shoes that he wanted- and they retailed for over a grand. The fact that Wade spent this on him when they'd only known one another for so long meant a fuck-ton.
He brushed his thumb over the red and blue accents by the sole of the shoe before lunging up and hugging Wade tightly. Wade laughed before kissing Peter's head through his mask and rubbing his back. Peter made it a point to put the shoe back into the box the same as he found it. After Peter composed himself, Steve handed out the next round of gifts.
Nat actually started to cry when she opened one of the gifts from Peter, and Steve teared up when he opened one from Bucky. Tony and Bruce loved the gifts they got for one another and laughed because of how similar their gifts were.
Peter sat still as a statue when Bucky got his hands on a gift from Peter. He opened it slowly, carefully. He could hear whatever it was rattling a little, and he hoped to God that he hadn't broken whatever it was. Once he pulled the box open though, he stilled. Inside was a toolset, but not like a regular toolset, it was a custom made carbon fiber toolset that Peter special ordered. Bucky looked up and the pair made eye contact. Peter shifted where he sat.
"It's for your arm... I thought you might like having the power to be able to fix it yourself sometimes..." Peter said sheepishly.
Steve smiled over at Bucky because even he'd heard Bucky ranting about how useless he felt that he didn't know how to fix even the simplest things about his arm. Peter thought he recalled something about that conversation, and right now with the way Bucky was staring at him he really hoped that he was right about this gift and not way out of line.
Peter saw that Bucky was tearing up bit he felt a little terrified by that fact... Until Bucky stood and pulled Peter to his feet and enveloped the small boy in a tight hug.
"Thank you."