CnDP - Mistletoe

Mistletoe


They overslept on Christmas.

Nathan feels he can be excused a little oversleeping, after the way they spent Christmas Eve…

Nathan prefers to have gifts picked out, purchased, and wrapped long in advance, especially for manic seasons like Christmas.  For Hope’s sake, he was lenient and allowed until Thanksgiving for Christmas lists to be finalized (he got two wish lists, both in crayon, one with considerably better handwriting but slightly worse spelling than the other).

Reverse Christmas lists, however, did not seem to have occurred to Wade, and the three days leading up to Christmas were spent buying and wrapping presents for Agency X and parts of X-Force (because Wade said he only cared to give presents to Dom and Terry, even though Hope insisted on presents for Laura, Logan, and Jimmy, too).

On top of that, Nathan had been invited to at least seven Christmas parties, one of which he couldn’t turn down and another of which he wouldn’t, and Hope insisted that Wade tag along all through Christmas Eve and Christmas.  So they somehow jammed three Christmas parties into one night.

They had a leisurely dinner, at least—some nice little Italian place in Brooklyn, where Wade ordered ‘pasketti’ in spite of Hope’s giggling admonitions that the word is pronounced ‘spaghetti.’

The first party of the night was X-Force, hosted at Dom’s new place.  Aside from casualties, they were nearly all there—everyone whose name had at some point appeared on the X-Force roster.  Dom, Terry, Laura, and Logan were the only ones who didn’t look surprised to see Wade.

A lot of time was devoted to exclaiming over Hope (and the associated flurry of hugs and ‘how are you’s and ‘Merry Christmas’es).  There were a lot of introductions, because everyone wanted to meet The Child, the reason Nathan had vanished for the better part of two years.

Wade disappeared somewhere along the line, and was only finally located long after Dom opened the present he got her (a small photo album she immediately hid, which makes Nathan wonder what was in it).  By that point, Wade had a suspicious mug of eggnog (Tabby, Laura, and Logan all had similarly suspicious mugs) that he nearly spilled when Dom hugged him and thanked him for the gift.

The end result of the party at Dom’s place was that Tabby was a bit drunk, Laura had some strange light-up keychain she wouldn’t stop grinning over, and Hope had pronounced Shatterstar ‘almost as cool as Wade.’

The second party was the SHIELD Christmas Charity Ball, and the only person there who didn’t look surprised to see Wade was Nick Fury.  Almost everyone else looked faintly disgusted, but Wade ignored them with practiced ease and flirted with some pretty cover models before Irene could appear and drag him away.

Some very formal greetings were exchanged with various ‘high muckedy-mucks,’ as Wade would call them.  Pepper Hogan managed to divert any reporters who tried to get too close to Hope (by steering them toward Tony Stark).  Much to Nathan’s surprise, Steve Rogers was there (the ‘alive’ part was what was so surprising…clearly something else he’d missed while he was gone) and shook his hand heartily—and Hope was treated to the unparalleled privilege of dancing with Captain America by perching on the toes of his shoes (the photographers probably sprained things trying to whip their cameras out at record speeds).  That time, Wade reappeared in a minor uproar as Jennifer Walters punched him hard enough to turn his head rather farther than it ought to go, and Nathan had to sit him down while Hope helped him get his head straightened back out (and Hope kept excitedly reminding Wade that he just got his neck broken by She-Hulk, and she’s famous).  When they finally escaped, it was nearly eleven; fortunately, Sandi had said Agency X tended not to start until about midnight.

Sandi and Outlaw cheered when they opened the door to the mercenary office.  They put a kiss on each of Wade’s cheeks and dragged him toward the tree and the buffet (where Weasel was calmly swatting Alex’s hands away from the food).  Bob waved (he was wearing his Hydra uniform plus goofy stuffed reindeer antlers and a bad sweater).  Taskmaster was petting (read:  trying not to be flayed alive by) Sandi’s cat (who was also wearing antlers).

Hope wasted no time in informing everyone that Wade got slugged by She-Hulk, and he shifted the attention back to her by tattling that she danced with Captain America and would probably be on twice as many front pages by morning.

They ate food.  They drank suspicious punch (and Nathan was all the more suspicious of it when Sandi gently took Hope’s cup away and filled it with soda instead).  They opened presents.  They told stories.  They made a toast to Wade and Alex.  They sang carols (slightly out of tune).  Sometime just before three, when Hope was very droopy, Nathan convinced Wade that it was time to head home.

So they set off with goodbye kisses from the girls, wishes of ‘happy holidays’ from Bob and Weasel, a half-hearted wave from Taskmaster, and a stern reminder from Alex that Wade should ‘hurry up and get back to pulling his own goddamn weight around here.’

It was half past when Hope and her plush companion were tucked into the air mattress Wade had bought sometime after Thanksgiving.  After that, Nathan got to play Santa.  It took him forty minutes to make sure all presents were set out under the tree properly and stockings were sufficiently stuffed (including a little one for Dollpool, because Hope insisted).  Then he spent five minutes fighting Wade off and ten minutes giving in and tiring him out as quietly as possible, and then, finally, they put on pajamas and went to sleep.

Even the former master of Providence and liberator of Rumekistan had a tendency to oversleep when exhausted and kept awake until after four.

Wade, on the other hand, never overslept on a day he was sure to get presents—a testament to how much he’d worn himself out that week (between shopping, a minor contract-theft, and the three parties).

Hope, in the fine tradition of young children everywhere, was wide awake by seven.  It was eight-thirty before she got tired of waiting for them to wake up.

“Nathan.  Nathan.  Wake up, already.  It’s Christmas.  Come on, I never had a Christmas before.”

“Mm-hm, jussa secon’,” he mumbled, rolling over and tugging Wade closer.

“Muh,” Wade complained at being stirred from his pillow.

They were left alone long enough for Nathan to drift back off.

And then the bed started to bounce.  “Come on, come on!” Hope cried.  “Come on, you guys, it’s Christmas!  I wanna open presents!”

“Prezzens?” Wade chirped, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“Yes, presents!” she repeated, still jumping.  “We have to open them soon, so we can get dressed and drive back home in time for lunch and the party and everything!  Emma will make that face if we’re late for lunch, and Mister Logan will say ‘that’s what you get for inviting Wade,’ and then Terry ‘n I’ll have to make faces at him and think bad words loudly in our heads.”

But Nathan was still pleasantly drowsy, and didn’t particularly want to get out of bed.

“Le’sgo,” Wade slurred, patting Nathan’s shoulder.  “C’mon, there’s prezzens.”

“I know, I wrapped most of them,” Nathan muttered, trying in vain to hold on to his human space-heater.

Somewhat clumsily, Wade slipped free and landed half-off the bed.  “C’mon, Nate, ‘s Hope’s first Christmas.”

It took five more minutes for mercenary and seven-year-old to drag Nathan out of bed and into the living room.

Hope made coffee and cocoa, because Nathan said he wouldn’t open a single present until he’d had enough caffeine to unstick his eyes.  So they sat around sipping their respective steaming beverages, grown-ups on the couch (Wade in flannel pants and a Deadpool tee, Nathan in frumpy Xavier Institute sweats) while Hope (in very girly purple-and-green She-Hulk pajamas) sat next to the presents and examined their tags.

Wade dug up a polaroid camera from somewhere—good thing, because even with coffee, Nathan wasn’t really very awake for the presents.  There was a lot of excited bouncing from Hope, a lot of carefully edited exclamations from Wade, and a lot of hugs and kisses from both.  For his part, Nathan sleepily managed to process each of his own presents and thank each gift-giver in turn.

Proper consciousness set in around nine-thirty, when Wade and Hope were playing with their new toys while Nathan was supposed to be watching the parade with Dollpool.  He parted them from their loot, shuffled them off to a hot bubble bath (Hope had immediately fallen in love with bubble baths when they got back from the future) while he dug around for something Wade could wear to the party without causing undue grumbling from either the X-Men or Wade.

Toys and wrapped presents were packed up, children overgrown and otherwise were dried off and dressed, and they were all buckled into the car in time to prevent tardiness to the picnic.  Wade and Hope sat in the back seat playing ‘I Spy’ while Hope cuddled Dollpool and Wade clutched his invitation (he was very protective of it, as if afraid someone would steal it and he wouldn’t be allowed to stay at the party).  The news stands were covered with pictures of Hope dancing with Steve Rogers (Hope was appalled, but Wade seemed to find it funny).

The mansion was decorated the way Hope and Hank had ordered, the kids had gotten to do the tree all by themselves, and someone (probably Bobby or Julian) had violated the long-standing no-mistletoe rule by picking the busiest and most public doorway to booby-trap.

Nathan is a firm believer in the no-mistletoe rule, because his past teammates, while open-minded, always preferred a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy regarding their (rather complex) relationships.  He can’t imagine the sort of fainting spell that would have come over the women of X-Force if they’d trapped Rictor and Shatterstar under the mistletoe…

People were awkward at first, but Hope was, as always, inseparable from Wade, and disapproving glances and remarks were kept at bay by the sheer force of her presence.  So Nathan ate with the grown-ups and listened to chronicles of the year’s life-changing events (along with a lot of ‘oh, Nathan, you’re back’ and ‘welcome home’ and ‘isn’t she just the sweetest thing’) while Wade and Hope sat with the under-fifteen crowd and compared presents (and Hope once again shared the tale of She-Hulk knocking Wade’s head around the wrong way).  The kids seemed to think that Hope’s new cell phone was the coolest present she’d gotten, but she insisted the giant collection of Crayola supplies bestowed by Agency X was the ‘ultimate present.’

By that point, several semi-unwilling victims had been kissed under the mistletoe, some tricked by crushing schoolmates (Julian pretended to be annoyed at having been caught under the mistletoe with Laura, but he radiated an awful lot of smugness for someone who didn’t want to kiss her), some forced bodily by snickering teammates (Scott loathed public displays of affection, but he eventually stopped complaining and kissed Emma just to shut Bobby and Rachel up).

After lunch, more presents were opened.  It was good that Wade had insisted on giving Hope toys instead of clothes, because all she got from the X-Women was clothing.  At least she isn’t like most children; she’s hardly ever had clothes that fit her, so getting clothes (especially cute and feminine clothes) pleases her immensely.

Still, Christmas is about things you want, not things you need (according to Warren, Josh, and Julian, who all agree with Wade about the wrongness of giving children clothes).  The boys all gave her variations on the theme ‘little girls like those, right?’, including a Barbie that will probably end up painted green and a Little Pony that will no doubt find itself painted like the Death Pony from Robot Chicken (Hope had roared with laughter at that sketch).

While dinner was being prepared, the men were relegated to the common room, watching all the usual Christmas movies (because that’s all that’s ever on television on Christmas Day aside from news and parades).

Nathan knows a lot more about cooking than most of them, out of combined necessity and the future’s blurred gender roles, and he nearly always at least offers to help in the kitchen.

Ororo had to reassure him three times that everything was well in hand before he left them to their work (and probably gossip, knowing the X-Women and various female friends and relations).

Hope had been watching him like a hawk while the ladies shooed him out, and when he turned to go back into the living room—in fact, nearly the instant he walked under the mistletoe—she did what any determined young child of a single parent would do, and dragged Wade right into Nathan.

Which led to now.

“You have to kiss,” Hope informs them with a smile of immense satisfaction.

There is awkward silence from the men and children gathered around the television, which draws the attention of the women in the kitchen, who all lean out to see what’s up.

Scott looks as though he might wring Bobby’s neck.

Bobby looks mortified.

Mystique looks vaguely ill.

Emma looks smug.

Wade looks as though he’d like to drop dead on the spot.  He won’t meet Nathan’s eyes.

These people don’t like him, after all.  Many of them might even hate him.  And Nathan is everyone’s best friend (well, except for Logan, but Logan doesn’t get along with very many people).  Wade likes to pretend he has a thick skin, but when the whole world is loudly wondering why someone like Nathan would ever have anything to do with someone like Wade, some of it gets through by sheer saturation.

“Be a good sport, Nathan,” Ororo urges, much to the agreement of earlier mistletoe victims.

“Yeah, Nate!” Rachel adds.  “We Summerses don’t back down from anything, even a li’l good-old-fashioned Christmas-time PDA!”

“Why can’t I be exempt like Rogue?” Wade asks.  “I mean, those of you who know what I look like—you sure as hell wouldn’t wanna kiss me, right?  Nobody would.  It’s dumb.”

“Don’t lump me in with you,” Rogue says a little crossly.  “Ah’ll have ya know, there are people who wanna kiss me.”

And everyone laughs.

It’s not funny, Nathan wants to shout at them all.  Stop making it into some sick joke.

But he doesn’t say it.  It won’t make Wade feel any better, after all, and it’s useless to make these people ashamed of acting like that if Wade still feels like the butt of some cosmic prank.  Nathan shakes his head.  “And, hard as it may be to fathom for those who don’t understand his…‘charms’…there are people who want to kiss Wade, too.”

Logan snorts and sips his beer.  “Well, Summers?  You gonna kiss yer man, or ya gonna keep yappin’ about it?”

Nathan gently frames Wade’s masked face in his hands and leans in.  The kiss is soft and chaste, and Nathan means it from the bottom of his heart.

Rachel and Hope are cheering.

“Ooh, Ernest Saves Christmas,” calls the kid who stole the remote while all the grown-ups were busy gaping.

Like a flash, Wade has Hope scooped up into his lap and on the couch.  “Best Christmas movie ever,” he tells Hope, who obligingly settles down with Dollpool facing the television.

The spell is broken.  Women bustle back into the kitchen.  Men and youngsters shuffle and shove until there’s enough space for everyone who can’t or won’t sit on the floor.

Nathan starts collecting Hope’s presents and taking them up to her room.  He takes the time to unpack her clothes from their stay at Wade’s; it calms the burn of anger at the way the onlookers gawked and snickered.

He waits downstairs for a commercial break.

“Can I borrow Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum for a family conference?” he interjects over the sound of a pair of twelve-year-old twin sisters fighting over whether they should watch other channels during the ads.

“You’re Tweedle-Dum,” Wade says, nudging Hope.

“You are,” she counters with a grin as she hops out of his lap.

Prying eyes and ears are everywhere.  Nathan suddenly feels that this would only be properly private in his room, so he beckons them to follow.

Wade seems somber.  He sits on the foot of Nathan’s bed and tugs Hope back into his lap like a shield.

Nathan sits beside him and draws him close.  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he mumbles.  “If they want to be bothered by it, that’s their problem.  You and I didn’t slog through all that mess of trying to fix each other just to have other people look down their noses at us and tell us we shouldn’t have bothered.”

“Slog is a word?” Wade asks skeptically.

“Yes.  To move with difficulty through muck or mire.  See also:  wade.”

“The muck and mire part or the difficult part?”

Nathan smiles.  “All of the above.  For better or worse, my heart tells me you’re the one.  I’ve had wives, I’ve had lovers…each, in his or her own way, made me feel that we could happily spend the rest of our lives together.  You make me feel that we could happily spend the rest of forever together.”

“I dunno.  Forever’s a long time.  I might run outta cheesy puffs.  You know what I’m like when I run outta cheesy puffs.”

“The point is,” Nathan continues, before Wade can successfully sidetrack him, “I love you.  I can’t stand the thought of you hating yourself, and those people have no right to make you feel like you should.”

Hope squirms around until she can hug Wade.  “I love you, too, Wade.  You’re my favorite person in the whole world.  I wish you would come live with us, here, so I could see you every day.”

Wade huffs a laugh and pets her hair.  “If you saw me every day, you’d get sick of me, munchkin.  And there’s nowhere near as much fun stuff to do out here as there is in the city.  And, jeez…the commute would kill me.”

“No way.  I couldn’t possibly ever be sick of you.”

“Glad to hear it, Tweedle-Dum.”

She giggles.  “You’re Tweedle-Dum.”

Nathan smiles and kisses Wade’s temple—he can feel Wade’s pulse through the mask, and the heat of Wade’s skin.  He can smell detergent and bubble bath, and barbecue sandwiches from lunch.  “I’m sorry I’ve always tried to make things go faster.  I can’t fix you overnight; no one can.  And I’m not patronizing and egotistical enough to lie and say that you don’t need to be fixed, either.  Things aren’t right inside your head.  You know it, and I know it.  And I did what I could for the physical aspect of it.”  He rubs Wade’s shoulder.  “But you’ve been through some awful things in your life…survived things that would have broken any man or woman I can think of…fixing that takes time.”

“It’s okay if it doesn’t happen fast, as long as you’re still trying,” Hope explains helpfully.

Wade hugs her very carefully, as if he’s afraid she might break, and leans his chin on the top of her head.  “I’m trying very hard,” he whispers.

“I know you are,” Nathan says hoarsely, squeezing Wade’s shoulder.  “I know.  And I’m so proud.”

“Don’t say it!” Wade yelps, shoving at him half-heartedly.  “I hate when you say that stuff, it makes me all…”

“Sniffly?” suggests Hope, peering up at them with a little grin.

Wade rubs ineffectually at his nose through the mask.  “Shut up, smarty-pants.”

Nathan smiles and pats Hope’s knee.  “You’re missing your movie.  We’ll be down in a bit.”

Hope giggles and slips out of Wade’s grasp, scampering for the door.  She knows about things like romance, and sweetness, and private moments.  She’s seven-going-on-eight, after all.

When the door closes behind her, Nathan slowly tugs Wade’s mask up and off, and passes him a clean hanky from the drawer.

Suddenly, Nathan realizes that this is only the third or fourth time he has ever seen Wade cry about anything.  He’s seen Wade elated, livid, upset, despondent, grieving, hysterical…all with dry eyes and barely a hitch in his voice.  It only seems to happen when Nathan tells him beautiful things.  I missed you.  I love you.  I’m proud of you.  Nathan doesn’t know whether that means Wade cries from happiness or sadness.

“Don’t look,” Wade mumbles, hiding his face in the hanky.

It’s unbelievably endearing, like so many things about Wade.

Smiling, Nathan leans close and trails kisses down Wade’s jaw to coax him out, tugging at Wade’s hands until he can align their mouths properly and give poor Wade the kiss he deserved out there under the mistletoe.

Wade clings to him after they part, settling against him and rubbing a cheek against the plain grey sweater Nathan has on over his white dress shirt.  “Perfect kiss,” Wade says softly.

“Oh?” Nathan teases.

“Sexy, but not ‘hey, let’s fuck.’  Sweet, but not ‘let’s go design a nursery and think up baby names for our grandkids.’”

Nathan laughs and places another light kiss at the corner of Wade’s mouth.  “Blow your nose, and let’s get you back downstairs before Bobby and the boys start placing bets that we’ve snuck away to have sex.”

“We haven’t?” Wade asks with a little pout.

“Not during the party, Wade,” Nathan says firmly.  “Besides, this is the very first time you’ve gotten an invitation to a Christmas party, isn’t it?  You should be downstairs enjoying it.  After dinner, there’ll be mulled cider and caroling.”

“Woot, caroling!”


.End.