A/n: Happy Thanksgiving to my readers who celebrate! I love doing holiday chapters, if you can't tell, so enjoy!

genderneutral!reader

Yes, the Avengers were coworkers. However, if you asked any of them on the team, they'd all tell you the same thing.

"Of course we're a family, what do you mean?"

That was glaringly obvious when it came to big holidays. Those times of the year usually saw a small enough decrease in Avengers-level threats that the team could be all together and celebrate.

It started out pretty small. You, Tony, Steve, Natasha, Thor, Bruce, and Clint. But almost every year, one new person would be added. Then, after a while, it was just constantly growing at an exponential rate.

You didn't mind cooking in the very beginning. Seven people isn't terrible, even though nearly half of them consume thousands of calories in one sitting. Thanksgiving food was really good at stuffing people.

Now you didn't even know how many people were coming. Cause first it was Thor bringing Loki after they had made up, then Steve brought Sam, then Wanda and the Vision joined, the next year saw Peter Parker coming by after his Thanksgiving breakfast with his aunt (so at least he didn't eat a lot), and it just kept growing.

After the defeat of Thanos, you thought Tony should start paying you a catering fee. And while your powers of fire bending were impressive, they weren't the best with cooking. You tried the second year of the official Avengers Thanksgiving.

It didn't work.

Plus, everyone always had little dishes they loved that their family used to make. So many kinds of potatoes. Multiple birds. All of the side dishes you could imagine. All the rolls you had to make because everyone always took two or more. The amount of alcohol consumed.

That one Friends episode where Monica has to make three kinds of potatoes and meet the needs of all her friends? That times fifty was how you felt.

Of course, you wouldn't change it for the world. One thing about you was you were a huge family person and loved being around those you cared about. Even if it meant slaving away in the kitchen. The perk was everyone else was happy to do the dishes and take care of leftovers, so you could relax.

This year, however, you could already tell it was going to be different. As per usual, there were some new people joining. Despite Carol's association with the Avengers for a few years now, this was the first year she was coming to celebrate with you guys.

Her plus Kamala Khan, Monica Rambeau, and Kate Bishop. You were pretty sure those were the only new faces this year. About 88%.

Now, again, the new faces weren't a shock. What you weren't expecting was to have people waiting for you in the kitchen when you got up at five in the morning to get started.

"Uh, hello?" you greeted, obviously very confused, and went over to grab your apron hanging on the door to the pantry.

At first, no one spoke. Then, Kamala cleared her throat and stepped out in front of Carol, Monica, and Kate. "We want to help!" she said, the brightest smile you could imagine adorning her face.

You didn't respond very quickly. One of the reasons you were happy to work alone on this meal is because you've never had anyone else who knew exactly what they were doing. They always needed to be told every single step.

Which is fine when it's cooking a small meal and not the meal of the year. This was a big deal and very exhausting work.

However, when you made eye contact with Kamala, you couldn't say no. It was the shiny look in her eyes of pure excitement.

You sighed. "Do any of you guys have decent cooking experience?" you asked.

Kamala nodded quickly, Monica nodded like a normal person, Carol cringed, and Kate made a face. "Does box Mac and cheese count?" Kate asked quietly.

You sighed and let your eyes closed, your nose scrunching as you thought. As you thought, you could practically feel Kamala's radiating energy.

With a deep breath, you opened your eyes and looked back up at them. "Normally, I would say no, but I am physically unable to say that to Kamala, so I guess it's a yes." The girl in question squealed and jumped up and down a few times.

"But!" Kamala stopped. "I have rules. The first is no powers. I've tried in the past, it doesn't speed up any process in the kitchen. The next is to pay attention. I do not want any injuries today, okay? I'm happy to help, but it would be really fantastic if this didn't take hours.

"My most important rule, however, is to not let anyone. And I mean anyone grab a bite. No one. Only if you're taste testing are you allowed to take a bite, and the others aren't doing that. They will try and get something. If they succeed, I will be very upset."

Inside, you were worried this would drive them away. Instead, Carol rolled her shoulders and said, "We got this. Just give me the easiest task you've got."

You smiled. "Don't worry, I've got something for all of you."

Divvying out tasks at the start wasn't too hard. You were on turkey duty- that was absolutely not up for debate.

Kamala, being the most experienced and eager out of the rest, was more than happy to do the stuffing. You gave her some liberties, but she said she'd stick to the classic recipe you handed her.

Monica was in charge of the Mac n' cheese. Since it wasn't from a box, Kate opted not to do it. Monica was thrilled to.

Kate and Carol were happy to help, but definitely needed something easy to do. So, Kate worked on the salad and Carol worked on mashing the potatoes. Well, the first batch. There would be a couple. In fact, there would be a few batches of these things.

A few hours later, you could tell the energy was starting to dwindle. You guys had been trying to keep up light conversation, but it was hard while also trying to keep track of time or number of whisks and whatnot.

"Hey, FRIDAY? Can you out on some fall tunes for us?" you asked the AI during one of the lulls.

"Absolutely, (Y/n)."

Kamala turned to you. "Why not Christmas music?" she suggested.

You shook your head. "After Thanksgiving. Not before- not literally on the day of. That's the only thing I can say no to you about," you said.

"Aww, but it's so fun!" Kate complained, earning laughs all around.

Still, you shook your head. "Yeah, well, Christmas music starts to lose it's charm if you listen to it for too long before the actual holiday. Plus, it's nice to start the celebration when there's only, like, a month left. You're not waiting as long."

Still, Kate attempted to add in some Christmas tunes. The glare you gave her rivaled the fury of your literal fire powers. She was slightly scared for her life for a minute.

When the afternoon started to creep in and others started wanting lunch, Steve came creeping into the kitchen. "What the- there's more than one person in here!" he said, genuinely shocked.

You shot him a smirk. "I have more guards. You want food, you grab a small snack. One that was not cooked today. And you better not fill up before the actual dinner or I'll be pissed Steven."

He mumbled and grumbled on his way to the pantry, grabbed an individual bag of goldfish, and left. Just outside, you could hear him complaining to someone else that you weren't alone in there.

The others were laughing up a storm. "Do they seriously try to do this every year?" Monica asked as she stirred away.

You nodded, feeling yourself relaxing more and more. "Oh yeah. They get creative, too. But I'm smarter than them. Plus, I've got FRIDAY on my side, as well as Nat and Wanda. They are really good at scolding them."

It wasn't long before someone else came into the kitchen. This time, it was Sam. "Don't tell me they sent you in here to try and steal food," you said with a small groan as you put the finished second turkey in the oven.

"No, I just came for myself. I didn't know you let other people help you out, otherwise I would've been in here since my first visit!" Sam said. By the sound of it, he actually felt really bad.

You just shrugged, taking this moment to lean on a counter and take a break. "I usually don't, just because no one else around here really knows how to cook. But they offered and Kamala is really hard to say no to, so here they are. And they're doing a wonderful job!"

They responded to your compliment with a chorus of thank you as they kept working. "Wow, next you're gonna have them saying 'yes chef' and shit," he said, laughing. "Seriously, though, I am happy to help out."

After a second of thought, you tasked Sam on making the desserts, since those were all that was left. Not like it was a small task- there were about ten different things to make to satisfy everyone.

But it was going, and it was fun. The kitchen was alive with everyone talking and the music playing in the background. There were some more attempts from other Avengers, including Bucky and Tony, but they were all unsuccessful.

And then finally, after hours and hours of hard work, the meal was ready to go. Peter Parker, the sweet kid he is, got the table nice and set up, so all that was left to do was to bring out the food.

"I got this," Kamala said, then she created a huge platform out of light that all the food fit on. "Now, we don't have to worry about anyone swiping any bites while we bring everything out."

You smiled brightly. "You, Kamala Khan, have suddenly become one of my favorite people."

The five of you- Carol, Monica, Kamala, Sam, and yourself- brought everything out to the awaiting Avengers. They were all sitting at the giant dining room table, ready to eat. It took a couple minutes to get everything laid out on the table and for you all to get seated, but finally...

It was time to eat.

Despite the chaos that sometimes ensues in the tower with everyone there, passing the food around and making sure everyone had some was going very smoothly. When it came to food, no one played around, so it wasn't hard to make sure everyone got some of what they wanted.

And the compliments would not stop. You were used to it, having done this so many years in a row, but the others were soaking them all in. Some knew how to handle it (Sam) while others felt very awkward and turned very red (Kamala).

When it was all over, everyone who didn't cook got into cleaning mode. At first, Kate started to get up and help, but she was quickly ushered back to her seat and told to stay there.

You couldn't help but laugh when that happened. "Don't fight it, kid. They may not be jumping to make the food, but they're all very good about making sure the cooks don't clean."

"It's a nice system," Monica said, finishing off her drink so Thor could take it away to get washed. "Do they take care of leftovers too?"

You nodded. "Oh yeah, that's Yelena's favorite thing to do. She likes to see if she can fit them all into the tiniest dishes we have. It's fin for her, I don't question. Despite the fridge being huge, it gets full very quickly."

As they chatted, talking about how fun that was, you sat back and just watched. It felt nice, so nice to have help this year. You never realized how quickly you got exhausted.

Maybe this could be a new tradition.

~Fin~

A/n: Here you go! Love me some domestic Avengers. And I also love Kamala Khan so I need to involve her more and more.

Also, this is important:

This is taking the place of the Monday imagine! I thought about posting this on Monday, and realized that would be weird. So, instead, I'm posting this on Thanksgiving day in lieu of the usual Monday post.

Regular scheduling will resume by the next week!

See you then Lovelies!!!!!!!!!!!!