Disclaimer: I don't own the Marvel Cinematic Universe or Marvel Comics or any of their characters.

This story is set in Christmas 2010, between Iron Man 2 and Thor.

When Darcy was five, her uncle turned up on Christmas morning with a truck full of hamsters. No explanation was given, but Darcy had two of them for Christmas, and the rest were passed around to various friends and acquaintances over the next month.

When she was seven, Clint was asked to pick up the meat on his way over. He arrived with three hens and a duck, all very much alive. None of them could bring themselves to kill the animals, so they had a vegetarian Christmas dinner, introduced the duck to the farm's pond and had eggs for breakfast the next morning courtesy of the hens.

Three years later, Darcy received a beginner's science kit. Her mom breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of this normal gift, and Darcy tried not to feel disappointed – she continued to hope her uncle would one day turn up with a truck full of puppies. Everything went a bit sideways when Darcy tried out her present on Boxing Day and managed to release a gas that had them all smelling nothing but roses for the next three days. Clint had apologised profusely – the science kit had apparently been provided by one of the SHIELD labs and, as it was a prototype, not all the kinks had been worked out. Her mom asked (not particularly politely) that no future gifts be procured from any spy agencies.

To be fair to him, her uncle had been better since the science kit debacle. His presents were always fun (though her mom did keep complaining that no one needed as much nerf gun paraphernalia as Darcy had) but nothing had exploded in years.

Still, when Clint and Natasha arrived on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, with bags of presents and their handler bleeding out on the back seat, Darcy and her mom only shrugged – after all, Clint had appeared with far weirder things in previous years.

"Hi Phil," Darcy waved cheerfully as her uncle carried his handler into the house.

After the first moment of panic when she had seen the amount of blood that had seeped into the back seat of the truck Clint had been driving, Darcy had decided optimism was the way to go. Neither her uncle nor Natasha seemed particularly worried, so she was fairly sure it wasn't too serious a wound.

Then again, their version of 'serious' was rather skewed, a side effect of having a job that was considered quiet if a day passed without someone getting shot.

"Hello Darcy," Phil winced slightly as Clint maneuvered them through the door, "I do hope we're not interrupting your Christmas plans."

It baffled her how he could be so cool and calm even with what looked like two gunshot wounds, but from Clint and Natasha's stories she knew that he was just like that all the time.

"We always plan for a surprise appearance from uncle Clint," she told him, "and this isn't nearly as disruptive as the truck full of hamsters."

Phil just shook his head, clearly already aware of that particular incident. Natasha looked confused but she didn't ask for clarification – a wise choice, really.

Clint put Phil down carefully on the couch, while Darcy's mom came into the room with an emergency first aid kit that would make any doctor proud.

"Darcy, you go and sort out the spare rooms," her mom said as she passed gauze, antiseptic wipes and a wickedly sharp needle to Natasha.

Darcy nodded. Blood and wounds didn't really bother her much, but it was always worse when it was someone she knew. She had only ever met Phil in person a few times, but she felt she knew the man from all Clint and Natasha's stories. Besides, she was well aware that she would be of no use in patching up the SHIELD handler, so she might as well do her bit by getting all the rooms ready.

Maybe she'd make a batch or five of cookies when she was done. Baking always relaxed her, and everyone in the house had a sweet tooth, though some of them liked to hide it.

Visions of gingerbread, triple chocolate chip and apple cinnamon cookies danced in her head and her mouth watered just thinking about them.

First, sort the bedrooms, and then baking was definitely on the agenda.

Clint's thank you to Darcy for the pre-dinner snacks was almost entirely obscured by the four cookies he had shoved into his mouth at once. Her mom and Phil were more polite, while Natasha simply nodded her head with a little smile on her face as she slowly but surely ate her way through half a batch of the apple cinnamon cookies.

Phil was lying propped up on the couch, his bandages hidden by a plain black t-shirt. Darcy had been shocked at first, never having seen him in anything but a perfectly pressed suit, but even in more casual clothes he still maintained that perfectly put together, totally in control demeanor.

She sort of wanted to ask him how he did it, but she felt it was probably the kind of talent someone was born with, something that couldn't truly be learnt.

When Darcy's mom headed into the kitchen to begin sorting out dinner, Darcy turned to her uncle, "I thought you said you wouldn't be here until New Year's Eve."

Clint shrugged, "mission went better than expected."

Darcy raised an eyebrow and pointed to Phil.

"Ok," Clint amended, "better than expected until the last hour, when everything went to Hell and we had to make a very quick escape. Nat made excellent use of some Christmas decorations that were up around the building – I'd honestly never considered using tinsel that way before."

Natasha smirked slightly, her expression more than a little devious.

Darcy thought about asking, but, really, who wanted nightmares on Christmas Eve?

They arranged the presents under the tree before dinner, a simple chicken pie with a quick cooking time that allowed Darcy and her mom time to complete all the prep they would need for Christmas Dinner the next day.

The food was followed by a round of hot chocolate for everyone as the three SHIELD agents gave an extremely sanitised version of the events that had ended with Phil being shot while they fled the scene and began their journey to the farm.

It didn't surprise Darcy that her mom fussed over all of their guests, but she saw that, even now, after knowing them for a few years, Natasha was still constantly shocked that people cared enough to ask her if she wanted another drink, or remembered that she liked cinnamon in her hot chocolate but not marshmallows.

One day, when Darcy had figured out exactly who it was that had been so cruel to Natasha, she was going to make them pay for it. She was only eighteen years old, and she wasn't ever going to be an assassin or a weapons genius or a martial arts expert, but Darcy had determination in spades and she could hold a grudge like a champ if she really wanted to.

Thankfully, she managed to distract herself with the fun of adding the final touches to the Christmas tree.

Almost all the decorations had gone up on the 1st December, because Darcy took everything Christmas-related extremely seriously, but there were a few tree ornaments she hadn't yet added, in the hope that those they related to might turn up in time for Christmas.

There was a figurine of the Disney cartoon's Robin Hood for Clint, who always grumbled good-naturedly about it but got very defensive if anyone even tried to suggest that they not put it up.

Natasha had a delicate ballerina that hadn't cost much but which she always held as if it was one of the most precious things in the world.

Phil's decoration was a simple pair of black shades, made a little more Christmassy by a tiny little Santa Hat in one corner of the frames. Darcy had considered something obnoxious for sheer entertainment value, but considering the insanity that Phil put up with from Clint (and Natasha too, who could definitely be an absolute troll when she wanted to), she thought he deserved something that didn't make him choke on glitter every time he touched it.

As the afternoon faded into evening, everyone agreed (mostly with good grace) to sit together to watch two of Darcy's favourite Christmas films – A Charlie Brown Christmas and Elf.

Natasha curled up like a cat next to Clint, who munched away on a giant bowl of popcorn, and Phil tried to hide how much he was laughing at the films. All three of the spies relaxed, if not entirely, then at least a little bit, and Darcy considered it a great success.

Darcy went to bed early, like she always did on Christmas Eve. She no longer woke up at 4am on Christmas morning, but she still got up very early and liked the idea of being settled in bed and fast asleep before midnight and Christmas Day came.

Her mom corralled Phil upstairs at about the same time, insisting he needed rest to properly heal. She made a good attempt at trying to persuade Clint and Natasha to do the same, but she knew as well as Darcy that neither of them would go to sleep until they had done a full check of the perimeter and then one last scan just in case.

Christmas Day, when Darcy thought about it later, was a blur of excitement and happiness and food and laughter.

A ridiculously early wake up because she'd never been able to sleep past six on Christmas morning. At least she had coffee to help her now that she no longer had her younger self's ability to get through the day on minimal sleep, a chocolate rush and willpower.

Food. So much food. Not that anyone wanted to complain about that.

An impressive number of presents, considering the fact that they were all adults. Darcy had the biggest pile, but the others had a sizeable haul as well. The scene of wrapping paper and presents everywhere was probably one mirrored in millions of houses across the country, though Darcy doubted many of those piles of presents included new trick arrows (for Clint), a high powered taser that was technically illegal in the whole of the USA (for Phil), or a pair of electroshock batons (for Natasha). Darcy and Beth's presents were far less dangerous, although Darcy had opened Clint's present carefully in case something exploded (nothing did – it was two tickets for a Lady Gaga concert and a Science Museum Potato Clock).

Christmas music playing all over the house. Sometimes different songs at the same time, like when Darcy put the Alvin and the Chipmunks song Christmas Don't Be Late on, and Clint shouted about appalling taste and started playing the awful I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas in retaliation, only for both of them to be silenced by Natasha calmly turning both songs off and putting on Judy Garland's version of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. You didn't argue when Natasha chose music.

More food, because Beth Lewis was firmly of the belief that if you didn't end Christmas Day too stuffed to move then you hadn't done it properly.

Half watching a Christmas film, too full to move but still passing around a box of chocolates, talking quietly about the gifts they'd all been given and the light displays they'd seen on the houses in town.

Catching up on everyone's news. Reading out stupid jokes from Christmas crackers and listening to Natasha tell them stories about all the ridiculous scrapes Clint had gotten into recently with the group he called the Tracksuit Mafia.

Darcy knew that the job Clint, Natasha and Phil did was important and dangerous, and it scared her sometimes when she thought about how close they all came to death every day.

But for the few days they'd be at the farm, all that worry seemed to disappear.

She was a college student enjoying being home with her family, not having to eat on a budget and having her mom to help with her laundry.

Beth Lewis was delighted to have her daughter back for a few weeks, pleased to have a chance to talk with Phil (who rarely got the chance to visit), and glad that Clint and Natasha could enjoy a brief respite in her home.

Clint was enjoying being the fun uncle who would watch all the ridiculous Christmas films Darcy wanted and who agreed to her challenge to see who could eat the most Brussels sprouts in one minute (Clint won that one, as always, but the gap was getting closer and Darcy was still hoping to beat him one day).

Natasha drank in everything about their Christmas, something she never had the chance to experience as a child, and was thankful for their easy inclusion of her and their lack of pity when it came to her past.

Phil, much as he was happy with his own company, liked the chance to have a noisy Christmas rather than his usual quiet, low-key celebration.

It was nothing too fancy, a Lewis Christmas, but it was always warm and friendly and a nice dose of normal for those who didn't always get that.

And as they reached the end of Christmas Day, Darcy lifted her mug of hot chocolate and proposed a toast.

"Peace and goodwill to all civilians and spies."

They chinked mugs and glasses, smiling, then settled down on the couches to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol.

And if Natasha wiped a tear or two off her cheek when the film came to an end … well, Clint just wrapped an arm around her shoulders and no one said anything about it.

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it.

I'm sorry that the next instalment, set during Thor, probably won't be out for a while. I haven't got any of it written so far and I've got an exam coming up and will unfortunately have to revise.