"ON THE FIRST DAY OF CHRISTMAS MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME A PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE."

A loud sound echoed around my room, ringing in my ears and I jumped up immediately, scrambling upright in my bed and grabbing my gun from out my pillow, my eyes darting around to look for the source of the sound.

"ON THE SECOND DAY OF CHRISTMAS MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME TWO TURTLE DOVES AND A PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE."

As I listened to the loud voice again, I realised that it was a Christmas song I had listened to many times and I breathed out a small sigh of relief as I looked up at the inbuilt invisible speakers in the ceiling.

"JARVIS." I flopped back down into my bed as the adrenaline began to wear off. "Can you please turn it down?"

"Of course Miss Emily." The AI replied. "My apologies, it was Mr. Stark's idea."

"That's okay." I smiled softly, knowing that Tony was definitely behind it.

"Merry Christmas too, Miss Emily." The AI added as I rubbed my eyes, trying to wake up a little.

"Merry Christmas to you too JARVIS." I grinned softly before I swung out of my bed with ease.

"On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, six geese-a-laying, five golden ring, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a tree."

I was just about to go take a warm shower when I noticed a small note slipped under my door. Eyeing it curiously, I walked over and picked it up, flipping it over to recognise familiar handwriting.

"Your Christmas sweater is outside your room. It's a tradition here. You better wear it the whole day. – Tony.

P.S. Enjoy the music "

I smiled softly before I slowly opened up my bedroom door to find a small brown box with a single red ribbon. I slowly pulled off the lid to reveal a rather beautiful red and white Christmas sweater with designs, including reindeer, hearts, Christmas trees and snowflakes. I think it was Bruce who had been explaining the tradition of wearing sweaters, normally ugly ones from his description, but thankfully, it seemed like Tony had taken it easy on me.

I had only a short shower, mainly because the music that Tony was forcing JARVIS to play kept playing on repeat and I was sick of hearing about partridges in pear trees, despite it being an upbeat Christmas song.

I got dressed into my Christmas sweater, pulling on a pair of very pale grey tracksuit pants that were almost white and braided my hair before I opened my door and stepped out into the hallway. As I shut my bedroom door, the music was abruptly cut off, but I could faintly hear 'Let it Snow' blaring inside Thor's room and 'A Holly Jolly Christmas' from Bruce's. I knew none of them would probably be happy about it, especially Loki, who I knew instantly would be fuming.

As I walked down the stairs, '12 Days of Christmas' playing in a loop in my head, the delicious smell of bacon, eggs, French toast, croissants and a bunch of other scents that all blended together reached my nose and I breathed it in deeply. I looked from the top of the stairs, seeing that it was Clint, Steve and Nat in the kitchen, causing me to smile softly when I saw Nat hit Steve over the head with the spatula when he accidentally dropped a piece of ham.

Someone must have stayed up late last night decorating, probably Tony, because the whole kitchen and lounge room area was way more decorative than I remembered seeing it. The whole kitchen bench was covered in candles and red and silver tinsel. There was tinsel wrapped around just about every single drawer and cupboard handle, including the fridge handles. The dining table had been decorated with all different coloured candles of all shapes and sizes, creating a very comfy feel.

But what caught my eye the most was the mountain of presents under the massive Christmas tree, several which I recognised as mine. I had put them the other day, but clearly everyone had decided to dump there last minute.

"Good morning." Came a heavily accented voice from right behind me, sharply jerking me out of my awe.

I immediately spun around, swinging an off-balance fist in the direction of the Russian accent, my adrenaline pumping through my veins again. My legs wobbled under me and I would have fallen straight on my back down the stairs if the hand hadn't wrapped around my wrist and held me upright. I blinked and looked up in surprise, seeing Yelena standing there.

"I try to say good morning and I get a punch in the jaw instead." She smirked, pulling me upright. "Seems about right."

"You should know better than to sneak up on someone." I gave her a glare, readjusting my sweater on my shoulders, looking over her Christmas sweater, which she somehow managed to suit.

"Merry Christmas сука." She smirked, walking down the stairs before I could even process what she said.

"Merry Christmas сука." I mimicked her under my breath, sighing heavily before I slowly walked down the stairs after her.

"Good morning Lady Emily!" Thor boomed from the dining table, a glass of something already in his hands. "And as you Midgardian mortals would say, Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas to you too Thor." I couldn't help but smile, my happy mood quickly returning as I looked over at him. "How are you drinking this early in the morning?"

"It was originally non-alcoholic." Wanda spoke up from where she was curled up on the couch in front of the fireplace with Vision. "But he decided to add some brandy to it."

"It only makes it better." Thor raised his glass to me before taking another gulp of it.

"It's eggnog if you want it." Nat offered from the kitchen where she was holding up a glass full of the same pale coloured drink.

"I think I'm good." I shook my head, smiling softly.

"Merry Christmas Emily!" I got about five seconds warning before Lila barreled into the back of my legs, wrapping her arms around my leg in her attempt of a hug.

"Merry Christmas to you too Lila." I laughed softly, managing to keep my balance by bracing myself on post at the bottom of the stairs.

"I've tried to tell her to calm down several times this morning." Laura's voice came from behind me and I looked over my shoulder to see her coming down the stairs with Nathaniel in her arms, dressed in a red jumpsuit with a reindeer on the front. "But she has too much energy."

"It's fine." I laughed softly, rubbing Lila on the head as she quickly lost interest in me and ran over to the presents under the tree. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas." She grinned at me before there was the sound of thundering footstep coming down the staircase and she didn't even have to turn around as she called out. "Cooper! No running on the stairs!"

Her eldest son was basically a blur as he ran over to the Christmas tree to join his sister and I laughed softly, Laura rolling her eyes at me with a faint smile tugging on her lips.

Letting Laura go over to Clint, I walked over to the bench as the rest of the Avengers began to walk down the stairs, dressed in various shades of colours in their sweaters.

"Merry Christmas Emily." Loki smiled up down at me as I slid into my spot next to him at the table.

"Merry Christmas Loki." I smiled up at him too. "Did you enjoy the music this morning?"

"Very much so." He rolled his eyes, though he was still smiling softly. "I'm going to kill Stark for it."

"Please don't." I chuckled softly as Steve brought over the last dishes for breakfast.

The plates completely filled the table, the food ranging from bacon, eggs, French toast and hash browns to toast, mini sausages, pancakes and waffles. Everyone was eager to dig in and soon there was many conversations bouncing backwards and forwards. I joined in on them every now and then, but I was content with watching them all and soaking up the happy atmosphere.

Breakfast went on for an hour at least, even though all of the food was pretty much eaten within half an hour, everybody only stood up and cleaned up when Lila and Cooper couldn't wait any longer to open presents.

As everyone pitched in to clean up, Wanda and Vision dragged all of the presents out from the Christmas tree, with Steve and Bucky moving all of the furniture out of the living room so everyone could sit on the floor around the massive pile of presents. Tony had JARVIS put on some more Christmas music and everyone gathered around the colourful mountain as he pulled the first present off the top, with was for Bruce from Bucky. I watched curiously as Bruce pulled off the paper to reveal what looked like a brainteaser, and a very difficult one. Bruce thanked him with a big grin. and I smiled softly as Bucky looked away in embarrassment

The next gift was to Nat from Clint, which turned out to be a Polaroid camera that Wanda explained to me printed out little mini pictures you could put on a photo board. Bucky got the next gift, a big bottle of beer from Thor, who claimed it was the strongest stuff in Asgard.

"Emily." Tony grabbed my attention from where Nat was trying to take a photo of Clint with her new camera. "This one is for you, from me."

I took it from him curiously, looking down at the rectangle shape before I slowly peeled off the paper to reveal a wooden photo frame with a photo of all of the Avengers crowded around the camera, all pulling faces. I grinned down at it and looked back up at Tony.

"Thank you so much Tony." I smiled at him. "I love it."

"Oh god why does my face look like that?" Wanda pulled the photo frame from me and I laughed softly.

"You look fine." I smiled.

The mountain of presents slowly began to diminish as everyone took turns to hand out different gifts. As we made it around the circle once, I had gotten two gifts; the one from Tony and one from Steve, which was a pair of personalised boxing gloves with my name on the Velcro straps.

Slowly, the gifts I had gotten everyone were slowly found and unwrapped, including the cookbook I had gotten for Pepper and a Lego kit of a fancy car for Steve that I heard him talking about all of the time. After I opened up a weighted blanket from Bucky, which he said was quite comforting when he slept, Tony unwrapped a large box of his favourite chocolates from me and Clint gave me a small pink tree that was apparently called a bonsai that he said would look good in my room.

As everyone continued to unwrap their presents, Nat went around taking pictures of everyone on her new camera and sliding them into the photo album that Clint had also gotten her, and that, unfortunately, included taking ones when we weren't expecting.

My next gift was from Bruce, who gave me a display stand of the restricting bracelets that I had first worn when we had gotten here, saying that I could use it as a reflection of how far I had come.

Bucky opened up my gift of AirPods for him and we spent the next ten minutes trying to figure out how they actually worked until Tony decided to help us.

I unwrapped Lila's present for me, feeling slightly guilty I hadn't gotten her one, and saw that it was a hand drawn picture of what seemed like Lila and me back at their house. It was only a little kid drawing, but the way she had done it made my eyes prick a little with tears. She ran over to me when she noticed and refused to leave my lap for the rest of the present unwrapping.

Once I had gathered up quite the collection of presents (including a Lego flower set from Pepper, a spar kit from Wanda, a gratitude book from Nat, an Asgardian coat from Thor and a photo album from the Barton family), there was only a few gifts left on the floor.

"Here, this one is from you." Loki picked up a small present wrapped in silver paper with a green ribbon. "From me."

I smiled up at him curiously and gently undid the ribbon, pulling off the paper to reveal a small wooden box. I slowly opened it up to reveal an absolutely stunning necklace; it had a silver chain with a simple green stone hanging from it, but I loved.

"Oh wow Loki." I breathed, slowly running my finger over the stone. "It's beautiful."

"You really like it?" He seemed almost surprised, smiling down at me a little.

"Of course!" I nodded. "It's amazing."

"Do you want me to put it on for you?" He asked softly.

I nodded eagerly, shuffling so my back was facing him as I swept my hair to the side and let him clip it up around my neck.

"How does it look?" I turned around to face him again, brushing my finger over the stone again.

"Beautiful." He murmured softly and I blushed what I'm sure would have been bright red before Tony cleared his throat loudly and told us to focus.