Christmas morning came, and all the Avengers started their day as they normally would. No trees had been put up, but there was still a large pile of presents in the living room, waiting for everyone to wake up and make their way in as a group,

Bruce and Steve were the first to wake, separately heading from their respective floors to the kitchen, where they, together, started making enough breakfast food to feed a small army.

Natasha came in next, bleary eyed, and headed straight for the coffee maker, pouring herself her only allotted cup of coffee per day. She sat at the counter bar, careful of her slightly protruding stomach, and sat watching Steve and Bruce cook.

Phil came in, more awake than Natasha, dragging a still practically sleeping Clint by the hand, sitting Clint at the bar, and heading for the fridge. He poured a large glass of orange juice and set it down in front of Clint, setting the jug of OJ next to it, then heading to the coffee pot and making himself a cup of it.

Thor was next to come in, immediately heading for the pantry to get a packet of pop tarts, preferring to munch on them while waiting for the food to be done.

Tony made what looked to be a grand entrance, but saw all of their usual faces, and made his way to the coffee pot, then to the usual spot at the counter, just as Steve and Bruce were putting large platters of pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, and hash browns on the counter. Tony let everyone eat, making small talk, before asking if anyone had been in the living room yet.

He got a chorus of no's and a round of confused expressions before explaining. "I thought you guys would be wondering if maybe Santa visited and got rid of that horrendous fake tree we put up after thanksgiving."

As one, everyone turned to the double doors of the living room, shut up with a large red bow across them. All the Avengers started wondering how they had missed that. Phil was the first to rise, making his way to the doors, everyone in his wake.

He pulled off the bow, and pushed in both doors, opening up the room up completely. Everyone walked in with awed expressions, breathing in the smell of fresh cut pine.

All the couches and chairs had been pushed into a very large half circle around the real Christmas tree, standing at least twelve feet, and surrounded by absolutely huge piles of brightly wrapped Christmas presents. Much more presents than there had been the night before. On both sides of the couches at the edge of the semi circle were boxes, clearly labeled 'TRASH'.

Piled on the floor behind the couches, each placed a few feet away from each other, were all the stocking that had been bought that year, each clearly labeled with each persons name, even ones for both Happy and Pepper, both equally as full as the others, even though they both wouldn't be there until a bit later in the day, wanting to spend the first half of the day with their two year old daughter, little Mary Hogan.

Everyone turned, looking back out of the room to Tony, who was standing behind them. While they had been checking the room out, Tony had quickly donned a Santa hat, and what looked to be a dressing robe made to look like Santa's coat.

"I call being Santa!" He said, seconds before Clint tried to call out the same thing. Clint huffed in defeat.

Everyone gathered around on sofas and spread out of floors while Tony started handing out presents one by one. While he sorted through the presents, putting them in piles for each person, the Avengers started going through their stockings.

Clint held up a pile of $15 iTunes gift cards. All tied together with a ribbon, marked as from Tony. "Dude, you know they make iTunes gift cards where you can choose the amount."

Tony looked up and smirked at him. "I know that, but if I do that, you'd have to input just one code to redeem your card. This way, you have to put in all 100 codes to get all the money into your account. That's your payback for insisting to have an iPhone instead of a cool new, better tech Starkphone."

"Not gonna happen," Clint said in a annoying singsong voice. Phil smacked him upside the back of the head, muttering "behave."

Tony finished sorting through the piles and sat back with his pile. Everyone looked between Tony and the much larger pile sitting next to Steve. Steve easily had the largest pile out of everyone, almost all of them wrapped very badly, as if the wrapper didn't exactly know how to go about doing the wrapping.

"What? I might have gone a little overboard, but that is what happens when you happen to be married to someone. You want to buy them everything you find. Even after five years of marriage. And because it is me, I did buy him everything I could find. So there," he even stuck out his tongue in a show of his childish tendencies.

After that, everyone started tearing through their presents, going one by one in order so everyone got to be the center of attention for a few minutes before moving on to the next person.

The first present unwrapped, Clint grabbed up the paper and made a power shot to shoot it into the basket, Tony scoffing in response.

"You thing you can do better, Stark? I bet you couldn't even make the basket."

"Oh, it's on, Bird Brain." And thus began the war of who could make the more creative shot to get the paper into the basket.

Thirty shots or so each into the paper war, Natasha suddenly yells out "Horse!" And using the couch behind her to help herself up, Bruce holding his hands out behind her, ready to help his wife if she needed, she ran over to Tony and raised his hand in hers, like a ringmaster to a boxing champ.

"No fair, Nat. You're supposed to be on my side," Clint whined, forgetting that the master assassin had to have been keeping score.

"Sorry, Bird Brain," stealing Tonys nickname for Clint. "You aren't the one who just bought be a pair of diamond stud earrings, containing a speaker and microphone for those missions where I have to be in full party costumes. You know, when I can fit in those tight clothes again," she grumbled to herself. Bruce heard her and pulled her down into his lap, covering her face with kisses, telling her how beautiful she was, all the while gently rubbing her belly.

Tony and Clint decided to declare a Christmas truce, Natasha and Phil officiating over the rules, so neither of them could find a loophole later, and everyone continued opening presents.

Just as they were all finishing, Tony heard the lobby to Avengers Tower elevator going off, and in walked Happy and Pepper, holding a diaper bag and a smiling and cooing two year old toddler.

Tony hopped up, running over and taking his darling adoptive niece from her mother, pecking Pepper on the cheek with a soft hello, and stealing away, sitting next to Steve, instead of next to the tree, like before. Tony and Steve immediately started making faces and cooing at her, looking very proud of her when she was actually speaking in partial sentences.

Pepper sat next to Tony, holding out a card to both Tony and Steve. "Here is your present from me. And kind of Happy too, but mostly from me," she said, turning to wink at her husband.

Steve had taken Mary from Tony, so Tony grabbed the envelope, opening it to reveal a card. It wasn't anything Christmassy, but instead was an "I'm sorry." Card. Hand written often the front, under the words I'm sorry, in Peppers handwriting, was a continuation of the title, making it say, "I'm sorry, but your present is going to be a little late this year."

Tony flipped open the card, and out fell a picture. He ignored the picture for more handwriting inside, saying 'Your present should be here around July of next year! Marry Christmas! Love, Happy and Pepper.'

Tony slowly picked up the picture with shaking hands, turning it over to reveal his and Steve greatest dream about to become a reality. A sonogram. Dated two days before. Tony's eyes started filling with tears and he turned to Pepper, grabbing her into a hug tighter than he had ever hugged her before.

She hugged him back, whispering soothing words to him. "We found out three weeks after the in-vitro treatments, and you have no idea how hard it has been to keep this from you the whole time. We went two days ago to the doctor, and we saw the heartbeat, Tony. You are going to be a dad." She reached out her hand to grab tightly onto one of Steve's hands, "You too, soldier. You are going to be a daddy."

Steve just broke down, holding onto little Mary, who seemed to sense that her 'Unca Seeve' wasn't in distress, but crying with happiness, so was content to be held by him, slightly patting the side of his face where she could reach.

It was a few minutes before either Steve or Tony could pull away, giving beaming smiles to everyone around them. Steve let marry go, pointing her to a pile of presents sitting untouched next to the tree. She ran off started opening them. Each time she opened one, she would proudly hold it up to show her mom and dad. JARVIS was capturing every moment of her childish joy to be given presents.

Everyone started gathering presents up and taking them to rooms, leaving Tony alone with Pepper, a happy and Mary. Bruce and Steve were going to start making preparations for a Christmas dinner, and after a short nap, Natasha was going to join in on the cooking.

Tony was perfectly content to lay on the ground, propped up on his stomach, thankful he didn't have an arc reactor to man over around. His face was about eye level with Peppers stomach, and Tony was content to sit there and babble on to the baby, saying both nonsense things and promise for the future. Pepper, used to this after her first pregnancy, which she absolutely loved, was happy to sit there and let him talk, her hand slowly carding through Tonys hair, herself overjoyed that she could be giving him this present.

Later that night, as Tony and Steve were preparing for bed, neither of then could, or wanted to, shut up about becoming fathers. Nothing in either of their lives had prepared them for the absolute joy that they both felt now.