The Tower: Holiday Special

Part 1

Tony's announcement to the press had gone down exactly like you'd expect something like that would. The room had erupted into noise. Pepper had rushed up pushed Tony out of the way and the rest of us had been hustled out of the room.

Outside the tower, we were the biggest news item of the year. People couldn't get over the fact that the people that they'd entrusted with keeping them safe were leading a polyamorous lifestyle with each other. There was this push to remove the government sanctions that gave the Avengers rights to operate outside the law in regards to the protection of Earth and its people away from them.

Thankfully even the conservative right saw sense when it came to that particular issue. The far right did push to have Steve stripped of the title of Captain America. Citing that someone with such loose morals should not get to represent the country. So Steve not wanting to cause any more troubles dropped it. Took up the name Nomad and grew a beard. It was pretty hot.

Other superheroes were approached for statements. King T'Challa had made a public statement saying how individuals conducted their private life was of no one's concern and had refused to answer any further questions. Scott would just gush about them whenever asked. He really was the Avenger's biggest fanboy. Rhodey liked to stop at the press that now flocked around the outside front doors and tell them we were all deviates. When questioned about whether he thought they were competent enough to be entrusted to protect the planet he just answered that it was still here.

The members of the public that were very supportive of them, and even liked the fact that they were like that, didn't understand me. Who was this complete nobody who somehow managed to bag all the Avengers? While they weren't referred to as sluts by their group of supporters, I almost always was. Because even though I had committed myself to them, and never strayed outside the group, where some of them did, I had to be a slut to agree to the arrangement in the first place, right? It was infuriating, to say the least.

Jax has his work cut out for him, let me tell you.

Inside things were tense. The fact we hadn't all agreed to the outing and Tony had just outed us made nerves frayed. There was a lot of fighting for a while. The fact we could now not even leave the building without being hounded didn't help.

Tony bought land in upstate New York. He thought if he built a compound more set up for them as Avengers rather than just living in the building that had been build for Stark Industries it would make both their lives as Avengers easier and our lives as a family easier too.

In the meantime, I just wanted us to get back to being a family. I was tired of the bickering. Christmas was coming up and while normally we just breeze through holidays simply because of a lack of time to actually spend celebrating them I wanted it to be special. I was aware not everyone celebrated it. Wanda was Jewish, Bruce was a little more spiritual than religious and Tony an atheist. Still, it could be a nice non-denominational winter gift-giving celebration.

With different levels of enthusiasm, I managed to convince them to play along. I even roped in Hill, Coulson, Rhodey, and Scott. The fact I'd gotten Thor to come visit us for the holidays was the biggest selling point. Even if he did bring his brother along.

We decided to do secret Santa. So we sat around in the common room as I scribbled names on paper and put them in a hat. "So shall we talk money limits? Will you stick to them?" I said giving Tony a pointed look.

"Whoa, hey! Why are you looking at me like that?" Tony said defensively. "I didn't even want to do this. Santa is creepy. But yeah, whatever, I'll stick to a limit."

"Okay, thank you. I really have no idea what to make it. What do you set a spending limit to when you have a Billionaire and an actual thief in the mix." I say looking around the room. "Should we allow for some extravagance or more thoughtful time spent?"