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lavellenchanted · 11 months ago

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LEAH I love love love everything about this! It is so wonderfully sweet and cosy, with just the perfect amount of romance and emotion and beautiful characterisation. I read it all with the biggest smile on my face. Thank you so much for such a lovely gift, I'm going to read it a million more times ❤️

Have Yourself a Scheming Little Christmas

The big reveal of my fic for @steggyfanevents's Steggy Secret Santa, especially for @lavellenchanted! December has been a big and busy month so I fell down on my Santa-ing a bit along the way, Sarah, but I hope that you enjoy some family and fluff here and have a wonderful holiday, a delightful end of 2023, and a great beginning to 2024!

Summary: Natasha's dad seems like he might need someone in his life. So does Sharon's Aunt Peggy. Luckily, they have two smart and savvy matchmakers to help them along the way.

AO3 link here.

Natasha wouldn't say that her father is sad, exactly. He doesn't spend all his time crying like the preschool kids do when their parents leave at drop off or someone pushes them down on the playground, after all, and he smiles when he watches her in her ballet shows and cheers for her when it's her turn at bat during baseball season (he might be the coach and cheer for everyone, but Nat thinks that he sounds just a tiny bit louder when she's up). Their apartment is clean and warm, and Dad makes her laugh with stories from his work and is always getting better at cooking, even if they do end up ordering takeout at least once a week.

Still, sometimes when she turns back to him before he notices that she’s watching or she's up to go to the bathroom in the night and sees him awake, he’s gazing into his mug or at the TV screen with this certain look. It reminds her of back when she was in foster care, that feeling of sitting in her room listening to the family laughing and talking while she was behind the wall. It makes her think, too, of Uncle Bucky: that staring, empty sort of face he sometimes gets, ever since she can remember, the one that Dad says is because of the war. Dad was in the war too, but a long time ago, and Nat doesn't think that he is sad because of that.

Dad might not talk about why he's sad, but there are hints, like how he tucked his hands into his pockets at Parent Night in October every time he talked to a pair of parents together and it was just him standing alone. Or like how they were in the park one day, and she was petting a puppy, and as she stood up, Dad's face was full of that look, just from watching the way that the puppy's owners were standing super close, holding each other's waists. And just like there are hints about what might be making him sad, there are hints about what might make him happy. She and Dad almost always get to school at the same time in the mornings, and the same kids are almost always getting dropped off then too, and Dad almost always starts glancing across the path in the same way at the same person, and the look on his face makes Nat think that if she saw it on a worksheet, she would mark it as the opposite of that nighttime look.

Nat might not know exactly what it is that is making him sad, but she decides that she is going to fix it. She is going to make him happy.

And to do that, she is going to need a partner, so she can get him his.

When she came to live in Brooklyn last year, Aunt Peggy told Sharon that she didn't know exactly what she was doing or why Daddy had decided that she was the right person to come take care of Sharon after he died, but that they would do their best and would always be honest with one another and would figure things out together so they would both be happy.

That has, Sharon feels, worked for the most part, but it is hard to be honest with someone else about your happiness when you aren't being honest with yourself. This is what she reminds herself when Aunt Peggy responds to Sharon's probing with a laugh and a quick, "I'm perfectly satisfied with you, my work, and everything in my life, thank you." She might not be lying to Sharon on purpose, but that doesn't mean it isn't a lie anyway.

So she is quite prepared to accept when Nat Rogers from the other class comes up to her in the line for the swings during recess on the first Tuesday in December and asks, "Are you available to come over after school sometime this week? I think that your aunt and my dad have something in common."

Aunt Peggy doesn't need to beg for attention, and Sharon won't either. Watching Betty's pumping legs on the swing, she says casually back, "Is it that they both want to be dating but they won't do anything about it?"

She likes Nat more for neither squealing nor stomping off in a huff at having her surprise spoiled, but instead saying calmly, "I assume that if you’re already aware, that means we can arrange something?"

Even though it's probably a good sign that she and Nat, both pretty smart people, had the same idea; and even though Sharon saw the way that Aunt Peggy smiled as she and Natasha's dad talked on the phone to arrange their "playdate" but also noticed the way she carefully kept her smile out of her voice; and even though Sharon finds herself approving of Mr. Rogers, who tells her to call him Steve and clearly drew the picture of him and Natasha that's framed on the bedside table in her room...even with all that, it isn't until she suggests that they get Nat's tablet to write out their plan and Nat tells her that the rule is that she isn't allowed to have much tablet time, especially when friends are over and they aren't doing schoolwork because "my dad thinks it limits my imagination," which is almost exactly the same thing that Aunt Peggy always says, that Sharon actually believes this might work.

It is not a hard sell at all to get Dad to take her to the ice rink at Prospect Park. Their weekends are usually filled with outings, even if it's just errands, but Dad's been especially busy getting orders ready over the past few weeks, plus they went over to Uncle Bucky’s last weekend.

“I’m sorry we haven’t spent much time just the two of us lately, kiddo,” Dad says as they tie on their skates, and Nat laces hers tight and doesn’t feel at all guilty that as long as Sharon held up her end of the deal, it won’t be just the two of them for long.

She does a few jumps and glides around the ice, choreographing to her ballet music in her head, and right at the dramatic flourish, Sharon enters the rink, with her aunt behind her.

Natasha has taken the time to study Peggy Carter before, calculating the meaning of her purposeful stride and perfectly done lipstick during the mornings and afternoons at school or at Parent Night. Still, she notes approvingly today that she is wearing a nice black peacoat and a scarf that is the same color as Dad’s eyes that is looped easily around her neck and corresponds perfectly with her hair and skin, and that she looks graceful and competent on the ice. Taking a deep breath, Nat puts the first step of the plan into action.

“Hi, Sharon!” She skates toward her quickly, knowing that Dad will follow without thinking or noticing who she is skating toward, just to keep an eye on her.

"Slow down, Nat," she hears from behind her, and then an oof!

Dad would never say no to her if she wanted to go to the rink, but he isn't exactly as skilled as she is. Uncle Bucky has always said that Dad has "two left feet and probably a couple of left hands too," especially when he's nervous...and seeing Ms. Carter is definitely the type of thing that would make him nervous.

She and Sharon reach out and grab each other's hands, catching eyes as they listen to the conversation behind them.

"Are you alright there, Mr. Rogers?"

"Ms. Carter...!" Dad gives a sort of wince-laugh. "Could have done without face-planting in front of everyone in Brooklyn, but I'll get over it."

"She's almost laughing," Sharon whispers in shock, glancing at the pair of them over Nat's shoulder, and Nat feels a little zing of triumph – all this time, Sharon was going along with the plan without the belief in it that she has – but of course she does not let that show on her face.

"I believe you did the opposite of a face-plant, if you don't mind my saying so," says Ms. Carter, and now Natasha can hear the laughter in her voice, although it is very proper laughter if she says so herself. That's okay; it sounds like it would match pretty well with Dad's crinkle-eyed smiles. "May I help you up?"

"I'd say that I'd only take that offer if you were really firm on your feet, but I can see that you are and I don't think you'd just ask to be polite."

"Right on two counts. Now give me your hand."

Nat and Sharon skate back over to quickly say that they're going to go around the rink together.

"Safely," Dad warns. "We'll be watching, and I think that Ms. Carter, at least, could get over to bust you in a half a minute if I wasn't holding her back."

"Probably less," Ms. Carter says, but as Nat and Sharon skate away, Nat notices that she has still not let go of his hand – and it doesn’t seem like it’s much about keeping him upright at this point.

She does finally let him go later, as they all agree to walk over for cocoa together (something that would probably have taken a lot longer if Nat wasn't there to push Dad past all of his stumbling, "If you aren't busy, and I don't know whether you or Sharon have any dietary restrictions, and we're happy to let you pick the spot if you have somewhere you like" and might not have happened at all if Ms. Carter had done less standing there with slightly amused patience and more making excuses to leave in the fact of what Nat considers his awkwardness) but she also, it seems, is walking very close to him, much closer than two new friends on a sidewalk would need to be, even if they are making sure to catch every word from each other among the crowds.

When they get to her and Dad’s favorite diner, Mr. Phillips seems to know Ms. Carter — “I’d ask why you were hanging around with this reprobate, Carter, but you’ve got quite the degenerate streak yourself,” he says as he gets their menus and drops crayons and his latest hand-written set of mazes and puzzles on the table for Sharon and Nat, although he pretends he isn’t doing it, just like he pretends that he didn’t add extra whipped cream or mint sprinkles to their mugs of cocoa when they come. Natasha likes that, when she asks what a reprobate is, Ms. Carter doesn’t tell her she’s too young for it to matter; instead she defines the word and writes it down in big clear letters on Nat’s paper. Dad seems to like that too, smiling down into his mug, even if it means that he ends up with a bit of whipped cream all over his top lip and Ms. Carter leans over the table to gently wipe it off with her thumb.

They end up staying past just cocoa, Dad and Ms. Carter sitting in the inside seats of the red vinyl booth across from each other and talking for so long that Angie comes over with her pad and offers to get something started for dinner. Nat and Sharon glance at each other, seeming to agree that no matter what had been said about the seating arrangements being so “the girls” could have easy access to slide out to examine the dessert case or to help Mr. Phillips with combining the ketchup bottles, it was really so they would be able to laugh about Dad’s design clients and the other lawyers Ms. Carter works with or to watch each other gesturing as they talk about important but boring things like the school board and “the political situation.”

She and Sharon also seem to agree, Nat thinks as she twirls some pasta on her fork and Sharon bites into her tuna melt, that the first step of the plan has gone just how they wanted.

"Oh good," Aunt Peggy says, holding up a book called Recipes for Feeding Demons. "I think that this will be a helpful guide for Dottie Underwood." She glances at the cover again thoughtfully, then adds with some sourness, "Although I suppose that it might encourage her to believe that I'm interested in her well-being."

Sharon reaches over to take it and add it to the pile they've already made of intended books for friends, coworkers, and their small amount of remaining family. "At school they say that if you don’t have anything nice to say, you shouldn’t say anything at all,” she comments.

“I suppose they’re right,” Aunt Peggy says, paging through a copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work that Sharon thinks might end up wrapped on Jack Thompson’s desk tomorrow; Sharon is familiar with him because there are always amusing stories about the other lawyers at Aunt Peggy’s firm, although fewer and fewer these days and more frowns and looking at documents on her laptop with pursed lips. “As much as I support being direct and honest and not holding back your opinion in most circumstances, keeping quiet can be a very effective way of making certain that the other person doesn’t sense your true feelings and allowing you to maintain the upper hand.”

“I guess if I was trying to find some Sun Tzu, you would be the right person to ask, huh?”

Sharon looks over, face showing careful surprise to see an amused Steve standing behind Aunt Peggy’s shoulder in the aisle of their favorite local bookshop, just one of dozens of fellow holiday shoppers crammed into the space. Nat joins him a minute later, holding a couple of graphic novels in one arm. Sharon approves of that casualness. They’d known it would be a little risky for her to try to get her dad to work a present-buying excursion into their plans for the day – he might have gotten wind that something was afoot if Nat too steadfastly refused to take no for an answer, but since they're regulars, it would have been even more suspicious for her to hover around once they'd arrived and give any appearance of trying to guide him anywhere in particular in the store or of this being in any way more than an average visit.

"Steve," says Aunt Peggy, turning in surprise and even seeming to flush just a little across her cheekbones. It's actually nice to see, Sharon thinks, pretending to straighten their book pile while giving Natasha a subtle thumbs up. Over the past few weeks, as her aunt and Steve have found more and more reasons to have them all spend time together in the afternoons and evenings and over the weekends, they’ve gotten more and more comfortable with each other, but knowing that Aunt Peggy still has that flash of excitement when seeing him tells Sharon that she’s made the right choice. The couple of times that her aunt has had dates since coming to Brooklyn, Aunt Peggy has been really careful to be her most shiny and controlled self. There’s a lot about that self to admire, sure, but it’s a lot nicer to see the real Aunt Peggy allowing herself to peek through, that little bit of vulnerability but also ease. She doesn’t do some sort of quick maneuver to spruce up the old jeans and sweater that she’s wearing, or try to cover up her pleased little double take. It’s equally nice to see Steve blushing a little in return, pinkening his smiling cheeks.

“It’s good to see you two,” he says quickly, tucking his hands into his pockets. “I’m glad that Nat had the idea to come here to pick up a few last minute gifts.”

"Funny, Sharon had the same thought," says Aunt Peggy, casting a glance at her, and Sharon smiles before digging into her pocket for one of the candy canes they'd had in a bowl at the counter. She tries to unwrap the plastic as if her heart hasn't suddenly picked up rhythm at the thought that sharp-minded Aunt Peggy might be realizing that it isn't all coincidence. But, as Sharon sticks the sweet into her mouth, her aunt turns back to Steve and adds, "I suppose our girls' great minds think alike."

"I'd say that we could get some credit for that, or at least for sending them to a good school, but I think it's all them."

Aunt Peggy puts her hand on his arm, an unexpectedly tender look on her face, and Sharon freezes a little; there's something about the moment that makes her wonder if there's about to be some comment made about how Steve has already done far more for his daughter than he gives himself credit for. Natasha had mentioned – just quickly, so that Sharon would barely even remember it except for the careful way that she had relaxed her jaw, which probably would have misled most other people but just made Sharon more alert – how much she dislikes people talking about her adoption like her dad is just doing charity work, like Nat's presence in his life is some huge burden or something he should get endless gold stars for enduring.

"We're certainly lucky to have them, just as they are," Aunt Peggy says instead, as the whittled pinprick end of the candy cane accidentally stabs at Sharon's tongue and she holds back a yelp to listen. "But I've seen bits of you in Natasha as well."

The two of them are making long eye contact. Steve's hand comes up to cover Aunt Peggy's where it rests against his forearm. Sharon very purposefully does not grin around her candy.

"Luckily the hair isn’t one of them," says Nat. Sharon wants to glare at her but channels it by chomping down and filling her mouth with peppermint shards, because the bubble of quiet that they had existed in so briefly disappears, the noise and chaos of a Saturday afternoon nearing Christmas rushing back over them with Nat’s flippant tone. "I don't know that he could pull it off."

Aunt Peggy replies, "Oh, I’m not certain I agree. I think he has at least a chance of managing with that color, even if it wouldn't be as lovely as it is on you," but her voice sounds normal now, teasing but confident rather than close and confiding the way it was a minute ago. She turns to Steve and asks, "What else will you two be up to today?"

Steve's smile somehow seems to have shifted from the gentle, private light it showed a minute ago. It just looks like a regular grown-up small talk smile now, the same way that Aunt Peggy's question sounded. But he says easily, "We're going to drop the books at home along the way to the holiday party that my best friend's family is throwing. They like to have it far enough in advance that no one's started traveling yet, no one's in a complete last-minute panic over gift-buying, and it might even actually overlap with some of the holidays that aren’t Christmas – practically half of the people in their neighborhood show up, so they want to give as many people as possible a chance to come.” With a tiny extra pause, a little blink and a deep breath, he adds, “I’d—I’m sure they’d love to meet you if you have the time to join us."

Aunt Peggy laughs, half-thoughtful. “Your friend wouldn’t happen to be a member of the Barnes family, would he?”

“You know Uncle Bucky?”

It is not until she hears Natasha's question, the truly surprised and curious blurt of it, that Sharon recognizes that her earlier comment had not been simply making conversation or trying in some misguided way to move things along to the next phase; it had been Nat, after all, who had suggested that the party would be a good next step, a way to push things from accidental run-ins and purposeful but casual dinners together. Between the bright embrace of Nat’s extended family and the assured presence of mistletoe that Steve and Aunt Peggy might just so happen to find themselves beneath, it would be the right setting to move things from falling to fell. But between their consultation during lunch three days ago and now, something seems to have happened.

It seems that she is not the only one to have realized the difference in Nat’s tone – Steve glances down at his daughter with his brow creased – and there is a slight slowness to Aunt Peggy's words as she says, "I only know Bucky himself by reputation, I’m afraid. His mother was my realtor when I was looking for somewhere that would be a mutually positive living situation for Sharon and myself when I relocated to Brooklyn, and she was kind enough to show me around the neighborhood afterward and tell me about life here."

She shifts so she is facing Sharon. "What would you think about coming along with Steve and Natasha for the party? I think it would be nice to see Winnifred again, but it's up to you. I know that you might have had other plans for how you wanted to spend the afternoon."

"You don't have to if you don't want to," says Natasha, like she honestly couldn’t care one way or the other and isn’t pretending to be casual anymore, but Sharon ignores her.

As much as she misses Daddy and despite the little burn of guilt at the thought that her current life is only possible because he died, this is one of the things that Sharon likes about living with Aunt Peggy. She has no problem putting her foot down or making rules when needed, but she also treats Sharon like her own person, someone whose opinions and desires and feelings should count equally to those of any grownup.

It's moments like this that remind her all over again about why she is working to make sure Aunt Peggy gets the things that she wants too.

"Do you think we should bring a gift to the party?" she asks, and Aunt Peggy and Steve smile in unison.

"What were you doing back there?" Sharon hisses to Nat as they walk ahead; the conversation behind them has moved from a lively and distracting description of some updates to a project that one of Steve's clients had tried to demand at the last minute over to a more serious discussion of something happening at Aunt Peggy’s work – something about “irregularities” and “starting to suspect malfeasance,” which sounds like just the sort of adult thing to keep them distracted so there isn't much danger of Nat and Sharon’s planning being overheard. "For a minute I thought they might even kiss right in the aisle, and then you blew it."

"I didn't blow it," Nat says, facing ahead. "I changed my mind."

Sharon almost stops walking. "Changed your—What are you talking about? Why?"

"My dad...My dad really likes your aunt. And I know you say that your aunt likes him back, but I don't think it's the same thing. I saw how he was looking at her back there. I think that he really likes her, and if that first plan had worked out and they had gotten together, his feelings could have ended up getting really hurt."

The sound of the words first plan and Nat’s use of the past tense echoes alongside their footsteps on the cold sidewalk. "My aunt wouldn't hurt his feelings," Sharon says, quiet but staunch, crossing her arms over her chest, although it's difficult in her puffy coat. "And you should have thought of all that in the first place. You're the one who started all of this!"

"And now I'm cancelling it. So don't think of trying to do something at the party. I've got cousins' eyes everywhere."

The coldness and finality in her tone does not scare Sharon, but it does mean that she needs a chance to regroup and gather any allies and resources as she makes a plan B. She's pretty sure that the party would have been a lot of fun and the perfect next milestone for Aunt Peggy and Steve to start moving toward dating if not the moment that got them there, but instead she hangs at the edges of the crowd, avoiding Aunt Peggy's eyes and brushing off Steve's questions and trying to pretend that everything is okay so that they don't delve any deeper, so that they have fun with Bucky and Winnifred and the rest of the Barnes family who seem to like Aunt Peggy a lot, so that she might salvage at least a little bit of the future that she and—that she has been working toward, even if she has to do it alone.

Natasha wouldn't say that her father is sad, exactly.

So maybe he doesn't smile in that certain, slanted kind of way that he did when looking at Ms. Carter. And maybe he goes to bed early instead of chatting on the phone with her about planning things for them to do together, and then about all sorts of other stuff until really late so that he’s yawning as he comes to wake her up for school the next morning. And maybe he just quietly boxes up the leftovers at dinner because it was just the two of them instead of four and Ms. Carter wasn’t there to tease him or stand next to him at the counter as they both tried to chop things.

Okay, so maybe he is a little sad.

She asks him directly as she sets the table a few days after the party why he hadn’t just invited the Carters over if he wanted to see them. And he had looked at her with that Dad look of his and said, his tone even more gentle in comparison to her tight one that she couldn’t quiet help, “It seemed like you and Sharon might have had a fight, so I didn’t want to make things harder for you.”

“You aren’t going to make me apologize?” She makes herself look at him as she says it, even though she wants to look down at the forks in her hand.

He looks back, with only the littlest raise of his eyebrow at the demanding tone. “I trust that if you’re having a problem with a friend, there’s a reason for it, and that you’ll make the right choice to apologize if you need to, to forgive her, or to decide that your friendship is over.” He steps over and places a kiss on her head. “That’s the kind of thing that we do for the people we love, Nat,” he says softly against her hair. “We trust them.”

As she lies in bed that night, Nat, pinching the twisty worm of guilt tunneling through her insides, thinks about choices, and about trust. Yes, Dad might get hurt from being with Ms. Carter, but maybe he won’t. Maybe she should trust that Ms. Carter will be careful with him, or that even if something does happen, Dad will be glad to have been with her anyway for as long as it might last.

One of the things that Dad taught her, first as his foster kid and now as his kid, is that we can look for people to be good instead of assuming that they won’t be. She decides to try that now, decides that she will talk to Sharon in the morning.

Even if her father isn’t sad, that doesn’t mean he can’t be happier. If not seeing Ms. Carter is already hurting him, maybe Natasha was right in the first place about what he needs and what she needs to do to get it for him.

Sharon had been a little bit surprised that Steve and Natasha don’t have huge Christmas Eve plans; there seemed to be infinite relatives at the party, all hugging them and laughing, part of the sort of enormous family that she has only seen on TV or in movies, where they would all gather and watch some holiday classic and fall asleep in a big pile so they could wake up to open presents all together the next morning.

She is, however, far more surprised when Natasha comes over to her at school two days before Christmas and says that she was wrong to try to stop their plan and that she is ready to finish things.

“And how do I know you won’t back out again?” Sharon looks out across the playground, only flicking her eyes back in tiny darts to catch glimpses of Nat.

“You just believe, I guess, the same way that you do with anything about other people,” Nat says simply. “But also…If your aunt has been anything like my dad over the past few days, you’ll be willing to take the risk.”

Sharon looks at her fully now, red hair glinting metallic under the afternoon sun covering the playground despite the cold, face not overly apologetic but certainly determined. She thinks of Aunt Peggy, the way that over the last few days she had more than once picked up her phone to check for messages or to start sending one herself before placing it forcefully back down again, how dinner was somewhat lackluster because although they were back to eating good takeout, Aunt Peggy carefully cut and ate each bite as if programmed and as if she wasn’t enjoying it half as much as she would choking down whatever Steve had made recently, the way she would go back into her home office to work afterward because Steve wasn’t there to prod her into playing a board game together or talk about whatever was happening at work that was adding to her mood.

“Fine.” She crosses her arms and Nat does the same, the two of them scanning over the other kids on the playground. “What did you have in mind?”

The sleepover, they decide, will be at Natasha’s house. Sharon offers all sorts of logical reasons for this — Dad and Nat have a TV for showing movies while the Carters mostly watch things on their laptops and tablets, and the couch is smaller which will make it easier to box Dad and Ms. Carter into squishing together during the evening — and Nat doesn’t say that she suspects that, more than anything, it is because their place is simply cozier. She knows what it feels like to have those sorts of tender things which you don’t want to speak about, and exactly how much it means to come into the apartment and see the fridge with her papers and projects magneted firmly to the front and the walls covered in the paint that they picked out together after Nat’s adoption was finalized and the coffee table chest filled with Dad’s handmade afghans that anyone can curl under.

They had assumed that their careful planning would ensure that Ms. Carter wouldn’t just drop Sharon off and leave, but instead it is Dad. Even in the face of her laughing remarks that allowing herself a quiet bubble bath and a new coat of nail polish on Christmas Eve will be a treat, he says a soft and simple, “Peggy. You should stay with us,” and she actually does.

There are times during the evening that Natasha forgets that this is all part of the plan. Between decorating cookies, trying to play some games together (Pictionary in particular is a hilarious disaster, because Dad is very good and that makes Ms. Carter turn grumpy in the most steely and genteel way) and watching the argument between Dad and Ms. Carter about the best Christmas movies and which classic songs should simply be tossed out, it’s all just so much fun.

Originally they had planned to keep things going until it was late enough that Dad would be simply forced by politeness to ask her to stay, but the weather lends them a hand, the snow coming down in heavy flakes and with heavier gusts as the night wears on. Sharon’s hand clenches slightly in silent victory on the rug in front of them when it is Ms. Carter who comments, stretching as the credits of It’s a Wonderful Life roll on the screen, that she wishes she’d remembered her gloves for the walk home. Dad practically trips over himself inviting her to spend the night.

Instead of having that sleepover sort of excitement, the important sense of showing someone else your space and everything about your routine just being a little more when seen through the eyes of a friend, Natasha finds that getting ready for bed mostly just feels…comfortable. She and Sharon brush their teeth while listening to the sounds of the dinner dishes being cleared up, the voices of the grown-ups rising and falling peaceably around the rush of water and clink of silverware and shutting of cupboards as the dried dishes are put away.

Even though she knows that Sharon isn’t the sort to need to call home to say goodnight or to fuss about glasses of water and nightlights to avoid having to go to sleep in a strange place, there is something particularly cozy about two familiar faces framed in the doorway checking to make certain that they are sleepily settled in Natasha’s room. And although it could easily feel uncomfortable to have the usual night sounds of the apartment outside suddenly different, enhanced by an unfamiliar presence alongside her father, Nat finds herself relaxing into the humming murmur of conversation from beyond the door, so much so that it is only seeking out the triumphant glint of Sharon’s eyes in the almost-dark which keeps her awake enough to sneak out as the clock ticks over near midnight.

“That’s a tough thing,” Dad is saying as the two girls creep over to hide behind the sofa. The living room is lit only by the table lamps and the little bulbs wrapped around the Christmas tree where they are carefully setting gifts; even if they are too old for Santa tales, there’s something nice about traditions. “That’s a tough thing, Peg. You’ve already had a big year, losing your brother, moving across the ocean, taking responsibility for Sharon. Leaving your job over this would be hard — the financial issues, not to mention that bit of stability.”

“You say that as if you wouldn’t feel disappointed to find that I’d stayed at the firm after what I’ve found out,” she says, in return, smoothing some errant corner of wrapping paper with a firm hand. Despite her cut-glass diction and attempted humor, there is a bit of a question mark beneath that even the girls can hear wavering in the air.

But Dad shakes his head immediately. “I say that as someone who knows that whatever you decide, it will be the right choice for you both.”

“Ridiculous man,” she says, and Nat knows as she meets Sharon’s wide eyes that she has noticed the shake of tears in her aunt’s voice and that she hadn’t expected it either.

“Sure. Although not for this.”

When Dad touches her cheek gently, Nat has the immediate feeling that she should look away. But she reaches out a hand and grips Sharon’s instead, the two of them holding what suddenly feels like their shared breath. “I’ve seen the kind of person you are, Peggy. I’ve seen how smart you are — sharp as hell, six steps ahead and around the corner from everyone else — and how strong and certain and self-reliant. I’ve seen the way that you care for Sharon. There’s no one whose judgment I would trust more.”

“Well.” Somehow Ms. Carter makes even shifting herself forward on the floor surrounded by pine needles and presents look elegant, even with that remaining vulnerability there too. “Coming from a deeply kind and upstanding and moral man, and the best father I know, that means quite a lot.” And then she leans that last bit and presses her mouth to his.

Nat is certain that the small, excited squeak did not come from her, but based on Sharon’s matching warning look, she is equally disavowing being the source. Through some silent, mutual agreement, they decide to chalk it up to a mysterious but necessary atmospheric venting of joy at this moment and turn their attention back.

“What about the girls?” Dad asks as he and Ms. Carter part. “I don’t think that I can just kiss you, or just do it once, and they’ve both had it hard. If we started something…” but Nat notices that he does not move away and that he has her fingers still held in his, their hands twined and tucked snug between their chests.

Ms. Carter smiles, bright-edged and knowing by the blurry holiday lights. “Somehow I have the feeling that they won’t precisely mind,” she says, and when he leans forward to kiss her again despite his quizzical expression, Nat and Sharon take the opportunity to crawl away, exchanging a triumphant nod.

When they get back to Nat’s bedroom, hearing the low laughter still coming from the living room, they cannot help but high five as well for a job well done, a successful plan, the future that they made for all of them together.

(And if perhaps Ms. Carter clued in somewhere along the way, well, they couldn’t really expect to make it through without that happening, could they?)

Sharon should be sleeping. December has been so packed: between all their usual traditions – skating, sledding, peppermint cocoa at the diner, buying gifts at the bookstore, the annual Barnes family party, decorating the tree and the apartment – and their move this year into the new place (which Winnifred Barnes had called “a steal,” Aunt Peggy had called “quite reasonable,” and Steve had referred to as “a travesty that would be solved by rent control”), by Christmas Eve she’s honestly exhausted. But something woke her and she can’t quite get back to sleep, so she finally gets up to go get a drink from the kitchen.

She passes Nat’s room on the way down the hall, smiling at the small picture of the four of them together which her sister had stuck up on the door. As she nears the living room, there’s a small sound that makes her freeze. For a moment she wonders if one of their gifts this year actually is the cat they’ve been asking for, but as she slowly turns her head, she finds that Aunt Peggy and Steve – probably tired out too from all the activity, Aunt Peggy’s work with the new firm, and the slow way they were turning in a circle together before the girls went to bed – are asleep and breathing deeply on the sofa together; it’s the bigger one from their old apartment but they’re still cuddled together, Aunt Peggy’s head on Steve’s shoulder and his tipping over hers as the bulbs from the Christmas tree illuminate them, tiny and glowing.

“Better get back to bed,” Nat says softly from behind her, and somehow she isn’t surprised to hear her there. “You don’t want to be too tired tomorrow to appreciate Peggy rating Dad’s attempt at the full English breakfast.”

“I could never be too tired for that,” Sharon says with a little laugh, but she is actually feeling sleepy again, so she turns and follows Nat down the hall, glancing over her shoulder one last time at their parents, all ready for another Christmas together.

#this is SO GOOD #what a fantastic gift!!!#otp: the right partner #fic rec

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